


When I said, ‘Till the end of the line,’ I meant it

by Stucky_Streisand_Effect



Series: Endgame fix it [2]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Anal Sex, Back to business, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Bisexuality, Bottom Bucky Barnes, Boyfriends, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers Feels, Comfort, Dirty Talk, Domestic Avengers, Domestic Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Sex, Eventual Smut, Fix-It, Flashbacks, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, French Kissing, Guess Who's Back, Guess who survived, Happy Ending, Honeymoon, Instead of regressing, Kissing, Living Together, M/M, Making Love, Marvel could never, Moving On, Mutual Masturbation, POV Bucky Barnes, POV Steve Rogers, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Requited Love, Romance, Smut, Smut comes in chapter 4, Soulmates, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Stucky - Freeform, Stucky is real marvel are just assholes, Top Steve Rogers, Torture, Wedding Night, Weddings, making amends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-01-29 21:07:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21416674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stucky_Streisand_Effect/pseuds/Stucky_Streisand_Effect
Summary: With where the MCU is going, I've realized that's it's never going to be too late for an endgame fix-it.In this fic, hope that I give more growth and closure to the characters than the creators of endgame ever cared to.Also, thank you to my patient beta, cap_and_cyborg!
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Endgame fix it [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1543897
Comments: 10
Kudos: 83





	1. I'll always find my way back to you

**Author's Note:**

> After endgame, I feel the need to post this at the beginning of all my Stucky fics now.  
The silver screen is not the only canon(s). Your canon can be inspired by it but it does not have to comply with it.  
To quote a very wise person on twitter: "Captain America was first created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby in 1941. Any iteration after that is fanfic. Just because my version is posted for free online instead of being made into a big-budget feature film doesn't make it any less valid. We're all just telling Steve Rogers' story."

Bucky looked out over the lake, wishing he could be as calm as its waters. Steve sat next to him on a bench that faced the lake. The second biggest mission the Avengers had ever undertaken was about to commence and Steve, being the self-sacrificing idiot he was, decided to do it all on his own. Bucky sighed. The old pre-war exhaustion of constantly worrying about Steve snuck up on him, crawling up his back and making his shoulders curl forward. Some frustration mixed in with his exhaustion. He knew better than to convince Steve not to do something. That would be an even more impossible thing than time travel. So, instead of scolding Steve like he did in their youth, he decided to focus on a good memory instead, hoping it would help to calm Steve for the mission, or maybe just himself.

“Remember when we first started living together?” he asked.

A soft smile lifted the corners of Steve’s mouth. Even though Steve was gazing over the lake, Bucky caught the nostalgic glint in his eyes.

“Yes,” said Steve. “I remember using my pride as an excuse not to at first.” 

Bucky smiled.  _ “That sounds about right.” _

“Then, I convinced myself that us living together was me helping you and not the other way around.”

Bucky’s smile didn’t drop but he raised a curious eyebrow. “How’d you figure that?”

“I saw it as me helping you with your rent, instead of me being a charity case.”

Bucky felt a pang in his heart. Before the war, Steve always worked so hard to prove himself. Accepting help back then was a knife to his pride. “You were never that to me,” he reassured.

Steve looked at Bucky. “I know,” he said, his tone softening, “But my pride wasn’t the only thing that made me hesitant about living with you.” The nostalgic flicker in his eyes intensified.

Bucky felt his face heat up. “Because of the times, we were so concerned about hiding our feelings from each other. Probably from ourselves as well.”

Steve chuckled. “So, you came up with a  _ genius _ plan for us to live together. As if that would help?”

Bucky lowered his further reddening face. “I was an idiot.”

“Thank goodness. Your stupidity is what started everything.” They shared a laugh. “Do you remember what you said to convince me to stay with you?” asked Steve. A knowing smile lingered on his features.

“Of course,” murmured Bucky. Not even Hydra could make him forget that. The vow he and Steve made to each other was etched into his very soul. He felt his heart begin to pound as Steve gazed at him with what could only be utmost certainty. But certainty of what?

“We’re all set, Cap,” Banner called from a few yards behind them.

Steve didn’t seem to hear him though; he was still gazing at Bucky.

“Uh, they’re all set,” said Bucky. His heart was pounding so hard, he was sure that Steve could hear it as the look in Steve’s eyes kept him captivated.

Finally, Steve broke eye contact and stood up. “I guess I should go stop the multiverse from collapsing,” he said with another chuckle. Bucky traipsed along behind him as they walked over to join Banner and Sam by the quantum portal.

With delicacy his huge hands shouldn’t be capable of, Banner pushed his massive glasses up his nose as they approached. His mouth looked disconnected from the rest of his face when he offered them a small smile. Everybody was nervous. So much depended on this mission.

Hank Pym was out of the country for a while, but he’d been courteous enough to give the Avengers a few extra vials of Pym particles, for any screw ups. It still did little to ease Bucky’s nerves. 

Bucky returned Bruce’s closed-lipped smile with one of his own. Despite his worry, Bucky felt his heart soften by looking at Banner. He had only been back from being dusted for a short while, but he’d already made a habit of picturing gigantic Professor Hulk going in for an eye exam to get fitted for glasses. Despite his size, he’d probably try to blend in and would give a flustered apology when he accidentally knocked something over or broke the exam chair. The idea warmed Bucky’s heart. Not just because of the absurdity of the situation but also because it was proof that what people first perceived as an uncontrollable monster could do something so gentle, so human. Bruce was no longer controlled by the beast within him. Instead, he accepted it as a part of him, learned to work with it, and used it for good. It gave Bucky hope.

“You sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Sam asked Steve.

Steve smiled but shook his head and walked over to grab Mjolnir and the case with the stones. He stepped up onto the portal’s platform. His eyes were focused but Bucky saw his grip tighten around the items and the muscles of his jaw clench. Bucky couldn’t remember Steve ever being this visibly nervous before a mission with the Commandos.

“Remember,” said Banner from behind the machine’s dashboard.

“Clip all the branches,” said Steve. The portal started humming vivaciously as Bruce powered it on.

Steve turned to Bucky, giving him a quick nod. Then, his suit helmet closed over his face and he was gone.

Bucky watched the platform nervously. Even before the serum, Steve had made it a habit to balance the world on his narrow shoulders, but the weight of this mission seemed too heavy for him even now. Yes, Steve never liked accepting help, but he never let that get in the way of missions. His fighting alongside the commandos and the Avengers was proof of that. So, why had he decided to do this alone?

Banner’s voice broke Bucky’s string of worried thoughts, “And returning in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1!”

The portal hummed even more energetically than before and Bucky was nearly blinded by the bright flash of light. Relief washed over him like a tidal wave. He managed to keep his face calm but couldn’t stop himself from hurrying over to the portal. At first, Steve was all he could see thanks to the flash partially blinding him. He quickly blinked away the spots in his vision and he froze mid-step after getting a better look at the portal.

As planned, Steve was now absent of Mjolnir and still had the case the stones had been in. What was not part of the original plan was him also having a large sack slung around his back and an unexpected guest.

Her lips curled into a familiar asymmetrical smirk, “Steve told me we won.”

Everybody’s jaws dropped when their brains registered who it was.

Banner stumbled out from behind the dashboard, shakily fixing his glasses as if their angle was somehow making him see things that weren’t there.

“N-Nat?” Banner sputtered.

She stepped off the platform with Steve and Banner and Bucky immediately ran over to them. Banner to Nat, Bucky to Steve. Sam seemed stuck, still paralyzed by disbelief.

Bucky ignored Steve’s amused huff as he eyed the few mild cuts on Steve’s face and… a beard? Steve was freshly shaved before he left. Just what was going on? He decided not to ponder that thought and instead started patting Steve down to check for more injuries.

“I’m fine, Buck,” Steve reassured. His grunt of pain betrayed him when Bucky poked his ribs.

“The last time you said that to me you had come home with 6 broken ribs and dislocated jaw!” Bucky exclaimed. “How do you work this damn thing?” he demanded, patting Steve’s nano-quantum suit. “Take it off now!” 

With a patient smile, Steve pressed a button and the nanites shrunk away revealing at least a dozen more cuts in his stealth suit underneath. 

“This was a stealth mission! How are you so beat up?”

Five years of separation and they were already falling back into their old dynamic.

“How are you surprised at me still getting beat up?” Steve jested. “Subtly has never been my forte.”

That sounded like a typical Steve Rogers excuse. And hearing that, Bucky typically would’ve just scoffed and dropped the subject instead of arguing with a brick wall. But the way that Steve’s eyes darted away when he laughed, told him not to. He decided to confront Steve about it  _ later  _ because, holy shit, Natasha was alive again.

Bucky hadn’t been a part of the Vormir heist but, he’d been told what it took for them to get the soul stone. What probably insane thing did Steve have to do to get Natasha back? Bucky’s eyes whipped back and forth between Steve and Natasha, saying all he needed to since words began to fail him at the subject of raising the dead.

Steve looked like he wanted to explain but he also looked hesitant “I-”

“What the fuck?!” hollered Sam, despite him now being well within hearing range. He’d remembered how to use his legs and had hurried over. His eyes bulged out of his skull as he stared at Natasha.

Still wearing her smirk and now wrapped up in a Hulk-sized hug, Natasha glanced at Steve. “Tell ‘em.”

Steve looked back to Bucky and took a deep breath. It looked like he almost didn’t believe what had happened during the mission himself. A contemplative look still twisted his features as everybody stared at him, eager for an answer.

“I’ll tell you all some other time.”

What?! That’s it!? Steve raised somebody from the dead and all he can say to how he did it is “I’ll tell you later??” What was he hiding?

“I have something else to tell you first,” said Steve. His contemplative look was gone and had been replaced by that same look of certainty from before.

He walked over to the table that was near the portal’s dashboard and set the case and sack down on it. His smile held an obvious secret. “I hope it’s ok,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at Banner who raised a giant eyebrow. “After returning everything, I made two extra stops; the first in the forties and the second to the 2010s. Both to bring a few things back.”

Banner cleared his throat nervously “So long as it’s not any of the stones, everything should be good. No  _ unstable _ alternate timelines would be created if that’s the case.”

Steve snapped open the case, still wearing his radiant smile “Good. Then everything is perfect.” He looked over his shoulder at Bucky this time. “At least I hope it’ll be.”

Compelled by the twinkle in Steve’s eye, Bucky came up to Steve’s right to get a look at whatever Steve felt he just  _ had _ to bring back. His heart leapt into his throat when he saw it.

Steve took it out of the case and turned towards Bucky, taking his flesh hand in his “This was my Ma’s,” he said, holding it up with his free hand. “She gave it to me before she died. Saying that I could use it when I find that special somebody. The person who I want to spend my life with.” He got down on one knee. Bucky’s jaw dropped. “Buck, I love you more than I’ll ever be able to prove. But will you do me the honor of letting me at least try to, for the rest of our lives?”

Hope, that Bucky hadn’t seen since their childhood shined from Steve’s eyes. Hope like that rarely survived adolescence, let alone all the war they’d both seen. It was so exuberant and brilliant, like the sun breaking through the clouds on a harsh winter day. Bucky felt like it was shining just for him.

His heart leapt into his throat and began to do somersaults. That must be why he was rendered speechless. He swallowed, trying to force it back down between his lungs where it belonged. But it was hopeless. It stayed lodged in his throat and seemed to be growing bigger with each beat until it was a painful lump that made him feel like he was about to choke. All he could do was nod as tears began to brim in his eyes. Steve’s hopeful smile turned into an ecstatic one and he slid the ring onto Bucky’s left hand. It went onto his pinky since it was a thin woman’s ring, but that wasn’t anybody’s concern at the moment. They could always get it fitted. Steve stood and wrapped Bucky up in his arms, kissing him tenderly.

For a moment, Bucky forgot all the bad things from their past and only remembered the good things. Excited butterflies flapped around in his stomach so fervently, that he felt like he was floating until he remembered they had an audience. Apprehension twisted his stomach, suffocating the butterflies. He crashed back down to reality and for a moment, more distant, negative emotions from their past as a 1930's gay couple resurfaced. He wrapped his arms around Steve, who even though he was no longer his sickly pre-serum self, Bucky was ready to protect from any intolerance or the violence that usually came with such hatred. His eyes darted from each Avenger, expecting their reactions to warrant his fear.

Everybody looked nothing but happy for him and Steve.

Bucky let out a sigh of relief. He should’ve expected better of Earth’s mightiest heroes. His apprehension was gone as quickly as it had come.

“I better be the maid of honor!” exclaimed Natasha.

“I better be best man!” chimed Sam.

Still in Bucky’s arms, Steve turned his head and looked at Sam.

“You can be more than that,” he said, letting go of Bucky and turning back towards the table. He reached for the brown sack. “I promised T’Challa this would be the last favor I asked of him.” The sack was zipped open and Steve pulled back the fold.

Sam started walking over to the table but slowed as he gawked at what he saw.

“It’s yours, Sam,” said Steve, “If you want it.”

Sam stepped up to Steve’s left and continued to stare. He slid a hand over the item’s cool metal surface before looking at Steve, who nodded reassuringly. He took it the rest of the way out of the sack and slid it around his dominant arm.

“You’re a good man, Sam,” Steve said, patting Sam’s shoulder. “You’ve always represented everything that this shield stands for. It was made for people like you.”

Sam stood taller and readjusted his grip on the shield. It already looked like it fit better. “Thank you,” he said, with a soft smile. “I guess I can hold onto it for a while.” His tone was playful, but his eyes looked as if he still didn’t believe the shield was truly his. Fearless yet humble. Maybe he didn’t feel like he deserved it. Bucky hoped he’d eventually see that he was more than worthy.

“So, who gets to tell Tony that he’s not best man?” joked Natasha.

Bucky’s apprehension from before returned with a swift vengeance. Hearing that name felt like liquid nitrogen being injected into Bucky’s heart, freezing it mid beat. Steve and Tony were at least on speaking terms, but Bucky was sure Tony would attempt to murder him if they ever saw each other again.

“An impossible feat,” chuckled Banner. “There’s no telling that man he’s not best  _ anything. _ ”

This was a happy moment, so Bucky attempted to hide his fear. He forced laughter. It came out hoarse.

“Well,” said Steve, smiling at Bucky, “I think we have a wedding to plan.”


	2. The Past is Where Fossils Live

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holding onto the past is unhealthy. The best thing you can do about your regrets is learn from them but ultimately move on. If anybody knows that, it's Earth's mightiest heroes.  
Bucky faces Tony for the first time since Siberia in hopes of making amends.  
Steve reveals how he raised Natasha from the dead.

The electric hum of the elevator was one of the few sounds accompanying Bucky’s pulse as it thundered in his ears. His staggered breathing didn’t match the intensity of his racing heart, making him lightheaded. He felt himself sway and was steadied by Steve giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze as they neared their floor. 

It was three months after the battle against Thanos and Tony had been out of the hospital for the past month. During that time, Bucky heard Steve talking to Tony over the phone on occasion. Steve, who was always relaxed while talking to anybody else on the phone, would pace, albeit slowly, around their apartment when speaking to Tony. The conversations were nothing chaotic. Mainly a bunch of shuffling around the subject of how the other was holding up since Thanos died. That subject usually got sandwiched between bits of small talk. Things were understandably still a little tense between the two.

There hadn’t been time for them to fully patch things up while they were planning how to reverse the snap. Steve told Bucky, they got along enough to focus on the mission but other than that, all they could do was put their deeper unresolved emotions on the back burner.

Now, the world wasn’t in need of immediate saving, Tony’s physical wounds had healed about as much as they could and he said it was time to heal some psychological ones. Even if only to make room for new traumas. Not the most reassuring sentiment but they had accepted Tony’s offer nonetheless, which happened yesterday over the phone when he invited them up to Stark Tower. He didn’t live there anymore but he still suggested that’s where they meet. They needed a place that wasn’t too personal like either party’s home but still felt safe and private enough as opposed to meeting in public. The Tower was neutral ground.

Despite his worry, Bucky was hopeful. But the moment the elevator doors opened and Tony’s eyes fell upon him, he knew just how well things were going to go.

For a split-second, Tony appeared innocuous. He stood before two super-soldiers in a pair of casual pants, a Black Sabbath shirt, and socks. No Iron Man suits in sight. He wasn’t even wearing his arc reactor that housed his nanite suit. He was there as Tony, not Iron Man, as he had promised over the phone.

It wasn’t like Bucky and Steve could de-serumed themselves, but they at least showed up unarmed and in casual clothes.

Bucky watched the vexation in Tony’s eyes intensify until he saw a flicker of that naked rage he saw back in Siberia. This was the first time they’d seen each other since then. Memories swarmed Bucky like a hive of angry hornets. Guilt more so than fear squeezed his throat together as if he was having an allergic reaction to a sting. It rendered him speechless, while his mouth quickly dried up, not helping the matter.

The three of them were motionless for a moment before a corner of Tony’s mouth twitched, as if he were attempting to force a hint of a smile, then he gestured with his only arm for them to come in. His anger was not as intense as a moment ago but still burned in his eyes like embers in a dying fire.

Unable to maintain eye contact, Bucky’s focus sunk lower on Tony’s body, eyeing the visible parts of his scars. Steve said the radiation from the stones left jagged red scars along the right side of Tony’s body from his torso to his scalp. They wrapped around his body, resembling deformed raised veins, staggering his hairline and causing his right eye to go from its natural honey brown to a faded murky grey. His right arm sadly had to be amputated.

Tony cleared his throat loudly when Bucky’s eyes lingered on his missing arm. “Haven’t finished a prosthetic yet. Ya know, being one arm short and all.”

“Your best work always took the longest,” said Steve in a friendly tone.

A bit of pride glinted in Tony’s eyes but disappeared when they fell back on Bucky. He huffed before he told them to sit on the couch and then walked over to the bar where he poured himself a neat double brandy.

They watched him drink it all in one go, his eyes never leaving Bucky, before immediately pouring himself another. After he downed that, there was nothing but more silence.

The quiet and the slowly increasing tension felt like a noose being tightened around Bucky’s already narrowed windpipe. He just wanted to cut the rope, but he wasn’t sure if it’d be appropriate for him to speak first.

Tony’s knuckles were beginning to turn white as they remained wrapped around his empty glass and his jaw was visibly clenched. In the silence, Bucky’s enhanced hearing was even able to pick up the grind of Tony’s teeth.

“Uh, would you like another?” asked Steve, nodding to the bottle of what was probably expensive liquor. Maybe he was trying to break the tension.

Tony didn’t seem to hear him. He was still glaring at Bucky. When Bucky’s ‘noose’ felt like it couldn’t get any tighter, Tony spoke.

“I can’t stop seeing it,” he said with a scoff, “I knew this wasn’t going to be easy but…” He shook his head. “The moment the elevator opened and I saw your face, I saw _ it _ happening all over again. The brutality, the blood, their fear, and your indifference to it all. Like it was nothing for you.”

Bucky finally found his voice. It came out croaky and quiet. “It wasn’t-”

“I’m not finished!” snapped Tony. Another bit of that fury flickered in his eyes before he brought his focus back to his empty glass.

Bucky imagined him throwing it at him. He didn’t plan on dodging.

Tony’s voice began to shake from rage. “You said you ‘remember all of them’?”

Bucky’s stomach twisted into a tight knot and he gave a meek nod.

Tony looked him dead in the eye. “How many of them were scared?”

Bucky’s heart sank “…all of them,” he murmured.

There was no change in Tony’s face. No crack in its coldness. He just kept glaring at Bucky, possibly studying him and wondering if the tears that were brimming in Bucky’s eyes were crocodilian.

Steve broke the silence this time. “What can we do to make this easier?”

Rage flashed in Tony’s eyes intensely again. Like somebody throwing a match into a puddle of gasoline. His focus snapped towards Steve.

“Nothing makes this easier!” he hollered. “My parents were murdered in cold blood!” His eyes whipped back to Bucky and he slammed his glass onto the bar. His scars accentuated his anger, making him seem even more ferocious. “What happened is unforgivable! And it happened because of him!”

“Tony, he was brainwashed.”

“I know that! But he’s all that’s left of… them.” Tears began to brim in Tony’s working eye. “Besides you, Rogers, who else am I supposed to be mad at about this, if not him?”

“If it’ll help,” said Bucky, flicking his eyes to the glass. “You can throw that at me.”

Bucky heard Steve’s heart break in his tone. “Buck…”

“Smash it over my head, cut me with the shards, hurt me as much as you need.”

It looked like Tony was considering the offer for a moment. “Don’t patronize me!” he eventually growled. “I don’t need to be pitied by my parent’s murderer! And it’s not like hitting you would do much anyways. You have the serum. It’ll heal any wounds up without a scar. Like all the pain you’ve caused for others, any pain I cause you would come at no cost to you. So, it won’t matter,” he spat bitterly.

Steve tried to calm Tony down again, but it was too late. Tony had erupted. And when a volcano erupts, you can either run, take cover, or let its ash burn you.

Bucky’s mind was already made up. He sat patiently as Tony went on.

“I wish I _ could _ maim you, punish you, leave some sort of reminder, scar you physically as much as you’ve scarred me mentally. But the only way your wounds won’t heal is if I…” his voice trailed off and he whipped around, giving them his back. “Get out,” he demanded, clenching his only fist. “This was a mistake. Get out.”

They didn’t talk again for months. During that time, Bucky wrote and mailed many letters to Tony while he and Steve planned their wedding. None of them got a response. Almost four months in, Bucky was ready to give up, but Steve encouraged him to keep trying. So, he wrote a final letter.

_ Tony, _

_ You said that any pain you could inflict on my body would be at no cost to me. You were both wrong and right. Because of the serum, physical wounds come and go at no cost to me. But also, because of the serum, mental wounds make up for the cost tenfold. It enhances everything, including emotion and memory. Every night I dream of all my past victims. I see their terrified faces, hear their last words, feel their blood on my skin. I’m reminded of their pain more often than my own. _

_ Some people have told me that the things I did are not my fault. But I don’t believe them. Never will. I want my guilt. Yes ‘my’ guilt, not ‘the’ guilt. I feel like when my sympathizers shift blame, in a way it invalidates my victims’ pain. That’s true for victims of any tragedy. Sometimes the abuser even gets more sympathy than their victim. That makes me sick. _

_ I’m sure most people would love to dismiss the bad things from their past. Pretend that they didn’t happen or forget them completely. The weight of my guilt almost feels like it could literally crush me at times, but I still wouldn’t get rid of it. I don’t want to forget any of the people I hurt. I don’t want to dismiss any of my victim’s pain. If I do that, then I’m no better than Hydra and the indifference they always showed to the suffering they’ve caused. _

_ At the risk of sounding dramatic, if me dying could bring back all the people I killed, undo all the hurt I caused, I’d go without any hesitation. But that still feels too easy for me. Even without the magic of resurrected victims, I’ve still considered ending my life. I still do from time to time, for various reasons. Steve is the only reason why I haven’t gone through with it. His love is the only thing that keeps the guilt and nightmares from suffocating me. _

_ You aren’t obligated to forgive me; I don’t deserve forgiveness. But I hope that you can at least find peace. Life can scar us and from what I’ve experienced, surrounding yourself with people you love and who love you in return helps to make our burdens bearable. You have a beautiful wife and daughter. Spend whatever time you can with them. And if you can’t forgive, forget. At your request, Steve and I will never contact you ever again and then even though I won’t be dead as you wish I was, maybe in time to you, I can still become nothing more than what Hydra always thought of me, a ghost. _

_ I wish you happiness, _

_ Bucky _

He called Steve over to read it and watched his hopeful expression wilt. When Steve finished, Bucky was pulled into a secure hug.

“…suicide” Steve’s voice was small and raspy, like somebody had knocked the wind out of him.

Bucky dragged his fingers up Steve’s back and wrapped them around his sturdy shoulders. “Yeah,” he said, just as weakly.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Bucky sighed “I’m not ready.”

“Well, when you are,” Steve pulled away only far enough to meet Bucky’s eyes, “I’m here to listen. You won’t be inconveniencing me. You are not a burden. When you’re ready, come to me and I will listen. I don’t care if it’s when the world is ending. I’ll listen.”

Bucky’s lip shook. “Ok,” he murmured.

Steve rubbed his arms. “Are you sure you’re comfortable sending this?”

Bucky shrugged. “I’m not rich like Tony. Even if I were, I wouldn’t even dream of trying to buy people’s forgiveness. All I have to offer is my truth, my heart. That’s all that matters when it comes to anything in life.” He let out a heavy sigh. “Are _ you _ ok with me sending this? If not, I won’t. He’s a very close friend of yours. I’ve already caused enough damage to your friendship with him. I’d hate to be the cause of more.” He lowered his head guiltily.

Steve nodded, “He is. And I’d hate to see our friendship end like this. But there are some things that hurt more than losing a friend.” Pain showed deep in Steve’s eyes. “The moment I saw you slip through my fingers on that train, I knew nothing was going to be more important in my life than you. It’s the real reason I didn’t give Peggy my coordinates.”

Bucky’s heart sank when the meaning of Steve’s words sunk in. A super soldier is more than likely able to survive a plane crash or jumping out of a plane without a parachute. With coordinates, a search party could’ve at least been sent out to find the Valkyrie wreckage and rescue Steve. Steve apparently never wanted that though.

“Waking up in the 21st century felt like a curse, like I had failed again to keep us together. But when I saw you alive in 2014, surviving was a miracle. I felt like I had been given a second chance and I’m not wasting it. It’s why I never stopped fighting even harder than I did in WW2 to keep you safe. I’m not stopping now just because I retired the shield. Because I want you to be happy. I want everybody else I care about to be happy. If distance is what Tony wants, I think we should let him have that. Let him find his own peace in his own time. After all he’s given, he deserves that and more.”

Bucky nodded. He kept his expression calm but the revelation that Steve crashing a plane full of bombs was also a disguised suicide attempt, was echoing loudly in his mind. “I’ll send it this afternoon.” He squeezed Steve’s hand with his flesh hand. “I think we both have things we should talk to each other about, when we’re ready.”

Later, Bucky folded the letter neatly, slipped it into an envelope, and sent it off. A few days later, Steve’s phone rang. Bucky saw him peek at the caller ID before leaving to take the call in another room. When he came back, he had a hopeful smile on his face.

“He’d like to see you.”

The next day, they found themselves riding the elevator all the way back up to the top of Stark Tower.

Like last time, they were met with an unarmed Tony when the elevator dinged open. Except this time, Tony looked remarkably better, in every sense of the word. His scars lay flatter against his skin and had gone from an angry crimson to a softer pink even though something like that took about a year. His hair line would always be choppy, but his hair was at least grown back, and he had it styled in a ducktail. His eyes weren’t calm, just absent of rage, but it was enough to put Bucky slightly at ease.

Tony ran his hand through his hair before reaching into his pant pocket. “Sometimes I forget you’re as old as Rogers.”

Confusion mixed in with Bucky’s dispersing apprehension and he bunched his brow.

Tony held up Bucky’s letter, which surprisingly still had its neat folds as opposed to being crumpled or torn like Bucky expected it to be. He shook his head. “You could’ve just emailed me. The post is so unreliable these days,” said Tony, rolling his eyes.

Steve chuckled. Tension was still unavoidable. But since Tony was being humorous, albeit sarcasm hinging on humor, it meant that today’s conversation could go better than their last.

Tony led them to the living room just like before, this time joining them. Bucky sat next to Steve on a couch and Tony in a chair a few feet across from them. He held, the letter out in front of him, re-reading it.

“Ok, first of all,” he set the letter down on the coffee table. “The whole ‘If me dying could bring your loved one’s back’ thing, _ is _ a little dramatic. Not to mention tired. And Steve wouldn’t let that happen anyways.” The corners of his mouth briefly lifted into a hint of a smile. He looked over the letter again. “God, you’re dramatic,” the sentence was clearly meant to be sarcastic and snarky but the faint quake in Tony’s voice betrayed him. “Most people mask their self-loathing and remorse by drowning it in booze”

“Or lavish gift giving,” said Steve with a soft smile.

“Well, I’m broke, and I can’t get drunk,” said Bucky with an uncertain chuckle.

Tony scoffed. “My God, how have you survived this long?” His tone was saturated with more sarcasm, but Bucky chose to answer him sincerely.

He looked at Steve who gave him a soft smile. “Keeping the right people in my life helps a lot,” he said, returning Steve’s smile. “I also want to spend what time I can attempting to make things up to as many people I hurt as possible. It feels wrong not to.”

Tony looked at Steve. “When he’s not a brainwashed assassin, is he always this sickeningly nice?”

Steve’s smile widened. “Yeah.”

“Well, stop it,” said Tony whipping his attention back to Bucky. His expression was dead serious.

Any tension that had lifted since the elevator doors opened, immediately fell back onto Bucky’s shoulders.

“I’m the person who saved the world by handling enough radiation to power an entire planet. Only I get to act like a saint,” said Tony.

If it weren’t for Tony cracking a smile, Bucky may have held his breath until he passed out. It whooshed out of him in another nervous chuckle.

“I admit, I was on a bunch of medication when you two first came by. It may have affected my reasoning…” said Tony.

“You don’t have to make excuses for reacting the way you did,” Steve said gently.

Tony’s eyes looked deep and distant before he lowered them. “It seems I’m always going to have lingering effects due to the radiation… nothing life threatening.” He lifted his eyes back up. “The medication helps, even though it’s mostly experimental.”

‘Experimental’? Did this medication have anything to do with Tony healing so fast?

“Wait, really? You shouldn’t have been drinking! And, experimental!?” exclaimed a concerned Steve.

“Don’t baby me!” scolded Tony. His nostrils flared angrily, and he paused to take a calming breath “I just… I want to make things right too.” His tone suggested that there was more to his words. Whatever it was, was lost to more silence. He looked at Bucky. “Well, I know you can’t get drunk but that doesn’t mean you can’t at least enjoy a simple Coors, does it?”

Bucky’s eyes lit up. That was the first beer him and Steve had snuck from the fridge as barely teen boys. They drank it on the fire escape of Steve’s apartment complex. Bucky remembered wanting to impress Steve but couldn’t bring himself to swallow the bitter liquid. He pretended like he did and held it in his mouth wearing a close-lipped triumphant smile. Not wanting to lose, a competitive smirk stretched Steve’s lips. He locked eyes with Bucky and took a bigger mouthful that was so big, his cheeks bulged. His eyes soon copied his cheeks as the flavor struck his taste buds. The swears that came up from the ground from the man Steve spat his drink on were anything short of colorful. It made Bucky spray his drink over the edge of the fire escape as well, only exacerbating the situation. They got a second grilling from Winifred Barnes who’d offered to come over and watch Steve that evening while Sarah worked late. Bucky, of course, had to tag along.

As he got older, Bucky grew to love the drink. It eventually became his favorite.

Bucky was astonished, “Yeah!” His manners temporarily leaving him. “I mean, yes please!”

When Tony got up to go to the bar, Bucky then looked to Steve who only winked at him.

During that and the many next visits, anger and blame eventually transitioned into understanding and forgiveness for their past actions to each other before finally becoming reconciliation. It came with Tony offering Bucky a handshake one late afternoon. Bucky accepted it, taking Tony’s self-made red and gold prosthetic hand in his flesh hand.

“Nanites?” Steve asked when Bucky and Tony let go of each other’s hand.

“Yes,” answered Tony, holding it up in front of his face. It glinted in the light beautifully as Tony turned it over. Its movement was fluid and natural and the nanites’ appearance was so smooth that aside from their color, they resembled skin. Tony smirked and flexed both arms like a muscle man. Surprisingly the prosthetic’s shape shifted like it was real muscle and skin, perfectly copying the look of Tony’s flesh arm.

Bucky was amazed. He had a million questions. Does it come off? Does it control like Tony’s older armors? Were the forms it could take limitless? The glow on Tony’s chest caught his eye. “Is that a new arc reactor?”

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” said Tony. He shrugged like it was nothing, but his eyes were glowing with pride. “I perfected a new type of armor. It’s called Bleeding Edge. The nanites are housed in my blood, my very marrow.”

Bucky’s science nerd mind exploded.

“Your best work yet,” said Steve. His casual tone juxtaposed Bucky’s amazement, like Tony came up with things like this all the time.

Bucky was still processing. “H-How?” was all he could manage.

An alert sounded from Tony’s pocket. He reached into it, pulled out his phone, and smiled softly at the screen. “It turns out that the stones did more than just give me radiation poisoning. They fused me with my nanite armor.” He held up the screen to them. “Romanoff’s downstairs. I upped the power on her taser weapons and she’s here to pick them up.” He directed his smile at Bucky. “I’ll tell you more about Bleeding Edge next visit”

“Did Tony Stark, just pass off the opportunity to brag?” teased Steve.

“Postponed,” corrected Tony as he buzzed Natasha in. “Also, you should thank Romanoff when she gets up here. She’s part of why I agreed to talk things out with you two.”

Romanoff. Natasha! Bucky’s mind stopped swirling around the idea of housing armor in a person’s blood and he looked at Steve. They’d barely seen Nat since she returned from Vormir. She was always busy with a string of missions or whipping trainees into shape alongside Sam, and whenever the incandescent captain was on Earth, Carol,. “Are you _ ever _ going to tell people how you raised her from the dead!?”

“Yeah, I’ll admit that’s an impressive ability,” said Tony, raising an eyebrow. “Not even I can do that, yet. Any tips?”

Steve nodded. “I guess it’s about time.”

The elevator soon opened, and a smiling Natasha walked in. After Tony retrieved her weapons, they all sat down in the living room.

“I’m excited,” said Natasha. “Not even I know how he did it.”

They all stared at Steve, eager for him to start.

Steve addressed Bucky. “He’s still alive.”

The concern in Steve’s eyes worried Bucky. “Who?”

“Red Skull.”

Bucky’s heart skipped a beat. The monster responsible for all his nightmares was still alive. How was this possible? Did this mean that he was still a threat?

Steve turned to Natasha. “At least, I don’t think he’s alive, or dead, just something… other.”

Natasha seemed to agree.

“What you need to know next is that, he can’t hurt you anymore,” said Steve, placing a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “He can’t hurt anybody.” Steve paused, his eyes searching Bucky’s for understanding, wordlessly asking if he was ok.

Bucky was internally panicking but kept his face calm and forced a meek nod.

“I never told you what happened to him just before I crashed the Valkyrie,” continued Steve.

Steve explained everything from him fighting Red Skull on the plane, to the fight leading to Red Skull holding the tesseract, and a portal opening that he dissolved into. As much as any enemy of Schmidt’s would’ve hoped, that should’ve been the end of that evil man.

“He’s trapped all alone on Vormir guarding an infinity stone he can never use, for the rest of eternity,” concluded Steve “He’s nothing more than a ghost of himself, trapped in his own personal hell.”

Bucky’s emotions were too turbulent at the moment for him to process, so he chose to focus on Steve’s instead. “How did you react when you saw him?”

Steve scoffed “I immediately charged at him. But my fist went through him. Before I could throw my next punch, he addressed me by my full name and even knew my father’s name. It didn’t seem like he really recognized me though. I told him that I was there to return the soul stone and demanded he give back Natasha.” 

“But of course…” said Tony. He had a knowing half smile on his face.

Steve returned it, “Of course, things were never going to be that easy. He told me that it didn’t work that way. I expected him to sound vindictive, but his tone was lifeless and tired. My next plan was climbing down the cliffside and using the time stone on Nat’s body, but Schmidt said that would take away the soul stone from whoever just left with it. So, that meant that Clint would lose it and we wouldn’t have been able to use it, creating a timeline where we don’t beat Thanos.” Steve shook his head in frustration, as if he were back on Vormir reliving this story. “I then demanded to know if there was any way to get her back and surprisingly, he said yes. The only hint he would give me was ‘A soul for a soul’.”

Bucky became suspicious. He knew better than Steve how evil and conniving Schmidt was. “What like, sacrificing your life for hers?”

“That’s what I thought too. I got as suspicious as you are now. This was still Red Skull after all. I can’t tell you how furious I was after that. There I was with my worst enemy and he was the only thing keeping me from somebody _ else _ I lost because of him. I felt so helpless, so trapped with all my rage.” 

Bucky watched Steve’s expression harden and his hands squeeze into fists on his lap.

“Eventually, I lost it. I screamed, cursed, and split about a dozen boulders with my fists.” Steve growled. “I screamed about all the things he’d done; all the people he’d hurt, the families he’d broken up, all the destruction he’d caused; how he hurt people I care about.” He looked at Bucky. The ghost of his regret was deep in his eyes. It was mixed with his anger and it sounded like he was struggling to keep his voice even as he continued. “How he tortured the love of my life and how my hatred for him and Hydra went to the very core of my being.” 

Despite him trying to stay composed, it was obvious Steve was starting to work himself up into a frenzy. His breathing was hastening and his eyes were becoming wild as his feelings resurfaced.

Bucky reached his flesh hand over and gave one of Steve’s fist a gentle squeeze. Steve paused to take a calming breath. His fists and eyes softened and he took Bucky’s hand in his before he went on.

“After all that had come out, I eventually remembered that even with all that he’d destroyed, life still went on. People mourned their dead, but they eventually moved on. Cities as well as lives, were rebuilt. People found hope again and were able to heal. And they were only able to do that by letting the past go. That’s when it hit me. I faced him, staring him dead in the eye and I... forgave him.” There was some uncertainty in his tone.

“Just like that?” asked Tony.

Steve lowered his head, “Okay, I didn’t truly forgive him,” he admitted, “It was more like I stopped clinging to my anger for him, which is a stepping stone to _ possibly _ forgiving him in the future. And that didn’t happen immediately. What I just described happened over almost 16 days.”

Everybody’s jaws simultaneously dropped. Anger temporarily overpowered Bucky’s nerves. He wanted to strangle Steve. Sixteen days?! How did he survive that long?

Steve continued talking before anybody could ask questions.

“I was there racking my brain for more ideas. It was hell. Because I knew that I wasn’t going to leave without Natasha but if I didn’t leave, I’d never see Bucky or the Avengers again. I was only able to survive that long because there was snow I could eat for water. But without food, I would eventually starve. I was dying literally and emotionally because I couldn’t let go of my anger, of the past.” Steve looked haunted by that notion. He lowered his eyes trying to hide how helpless it made him feel.

Bucky squeezed Steve’s hand again. Steve tried hard to be stoic so often. It came with the job of being a leader. Sam had taken on his new mantle very well, like he was born for it. So, Steve needn’t worry about still being strong for everybody else, but old habits die hard.

“My meltdown and my ‘revelation’ about people pushing forward after tragedy came on the cusp of the 15th and 16th day. I knew that even if I left Vormir without truly moving on, in a way I’d still be trapped there.” 

Bucky glanced at everybody else. They all seemed to understand how that felt. There were probably times where Tony felt like he was back in that middle eastern bunker. Bucky certainly felt like he never left Hydra’s captivity at times. He didn’t know much about the Black Widow program but Natasha had a haunted look in her eyes as well.

“I faced Red Skull and I told him I didn’t forgive him but I was done holding a grudge against him for everything. Even for what he did to Bucky, which is something I thought I would never be able to do. I shared my revelation about people continuing on. Let him know that in order to be strong, people don’t need to possess the power of the Gods, like he wanted to have. I told him that he gets to spend the rest of eternity a failure and that his life’s work, Hydra, had been destroyed. His lust for power is what doomed him to such a lowly existence and I would not be dooming myself to that with him.” Steve smiled at Bucky. “I was going home.” He looked at Natasha next. “The last thing I did was apologize to Natasha.”

Despite Steve’s eyes expressing sadness, Natasha wore a look of understanding.

“At this point, I didn’t think there was a way to bring her back. I thought Red Skull was just pretending not to remember me and was taking advantage of my hope to manipulate me into staying there forever as revenge since he couldn’t kill me himself. If that happened, my death would be in vain; an insult to Natasha’s sacrifice. I figured I could at least honor her sacrifice and her amazing life, by living on and remembering her.”

“Hopefully fond memories,” said Natasha.

“Mostly,” said Steve, returning her grin and winking. “After that, I felt this huge weight lift off me and my tears began to flow. I’ve never cried out of relief before. My next thought was how much I missed Bucky and was going to see him again. Then, everything went white and I woke up in a shallow pool of water with Nat looking down at me. The stars were twinkling behind her and she was smiling, like how she is now.”

“Sounds like a sight for sore eyes,” said Tony.

“You make it sound like you missed me, guys,” teased Natasha.

“Maybe a little,” teased Steve.

“By the way,” Tony looked like he was fighting back a smile, “I know you thought you only had one shot at your mission because Hank Pym doesn’t work for us but,” his smile broke free, “We could’ve found a way to get more Pym particles for multiple shots at this.”

“I realize that now, but I wasn’t really conscious of that on Vormir. I was blinded by rage and desperation. Also, on my last day on Vormir, I thought there was no way to bring her back, even with multiple tries.”

Tony frowned “Why do you think what you did worked?”

Steve shrugged. “My guess is, it’s like he said, a soul for soul. But in this case, I gave up the deeper parts of me that hated him more than I thought it was possible to hate something; the part that holds my enemies and regrets almost as close in my heart as I do my loved ones; and the part of me that’s not able to move on because of that. I’m still not quite sure about the finer details but, it’s easier to be open to and receive good things when hate isn’t blocking our hearts. When I was there, all I felt was negative emotions and they were what was getting in the way. Maybe that had something to do with it. But what I’m sure of is that even if we can’t forgive the people who have hurt us, we shouldn’t cling to our hatred for them. Because if we hold onto that anger, we can’t heal and our abusers, our enemies, still hold power over us. They don’t deserve that power. The best thing to do is relinquish them of it.”

Tony cleared his throat. His eyes looked uncertain. “I don’t suppose it’s very common for enemies to become friends is it?” he asked, looking at Bucky.

“It’s a rare occurrence,” said Bucky, pretending to think about it. “But not impossible.” He smiled softly at Tony.

Tony returned his smile. “Well,” his eyes slunk lower on Bucky’s body.

Bucky watched as guilt begin tainting the blossoming hope in Tony’s eyes.

“Beautiful craftmanship… on _ your _ prosthetic. But if you ever want an upgrade, let me know.”

Bucky’s eyes softened. “Thank you, Tony”

The four of them spent the next few hours drinking and catching up with each other. Bucky found out he had some things in common with Natasha. Being tortured and made into weapons against their will for starters. A new friendship began budding.

When he and Steve returned home that evening, Bucky felt lighter than air. Today was a step forward and he was going to enjoy it because he knew that the moment him and Steve fell asleep later that night, his nightmares would still come. They threatened regression every time he slept and sometimes the pull of their darkness felt like being sucked into a blackhole, but he fought them, every night. He fought the flashbacks he had during the day as well. Because he had somebody that made him want to fight, to never give up, and to push forward. Somebody who stayed with him, when nobody else would. Somebody who thought he was worth something, even when he himself didn’t think that. He pulled that ‘somebody’ into his arms and kissed him tenderly on the lips.

“What was that for?” Steve murmured, pink rising in his cheeks.

“Just, thanks for sticking around, Stevie.”

They went to bed a few hours later. Bucky drifted off to sleep cautiously hopeful for the future.


	3. My Ghosts Are Eternal But So Is My Love For You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve has a flashback and we find out what he did during his heist of returning the stones and Mjolnir. Bucky's exasperation ensues XD.  
Warning: Violence, torture, and self harm are talked about during this chapter. But the chapter ends on a happy note <3.

Steve stood in his office surrounded by stacks of sketches and unfinished paintings. The distant rumble of early evening fireworks drifted through the open window as he poked around the small room. It was eight months after Steve had returned the stones, making it July of 2024. His and Bucky's big day was two and a half months away. The proximity of the wedding and it being Steve’s birthday, as well as the fact that he was currently making them late for their dinner reservation, was apparently making Bucky jittery.

"Steve?" he called for the third time in the past fifteen minutes.

"I'm in my office," Steve answered. 

Bucky’s tone became accusatory. “You better not be looking for your wallet,” he hollered. “You can go one night a year not splitting the bill.”

Steve smirked as he reached into his desk drawer, searching for his wallet. “Of course I’m not!” he hollered back, his tone mockingly offended.

There was a pause before Bucky spoke again. “Well, I can tell you it’s not in your desk drawer!” Their was mischief in his tone.

Not believing Bucky, Steve chuckled and rummaged around in the drawer anyways. "I just need to-" he yanked his hand out, inhaling sharply.

An opened safety pin was lodged into his finger tip. Definitely not the worst injury he'd ever sustained, far from it. Yet, his hands shook as he pulled the pin out. Scarlet blood pearled out of his pricked finger and it began to throb. He closed his eyes and counted in his head.

_ “1…2…3…4…5…6…7.” _The pain stopped.

His finger had healed perfectly just like all his physical wounds since the serum. And yet, he kept his eyes closed. He was waiting for his heart to stop racing. Even with the serum’s amazing healing abilities, it couldn’t stop the nightmares or flashbacks. And Steve felt like he’d gotten pretty good at handling his demons, especially the older ones. But he was still healing from a more recent trauma. Recent enough that the smallest of things could still trigger it. He felt like an exposed nerve.

His hands squeezed into white-knuckled fists as he was mentally dragged back to that horrible bunker.

...

_A scream of rage erupted from Steve as a sharp pain pierced his neck. He clawed at it like a feral animal, yanked the tranquilizer dart from his flesh, and shattered it in his fist. Barely noticing the pain from its shards now wedged in his palm, he left a trail of blood drops as he stomped towards the next scientist who was currently shrinking into a corner. He grabbed the man by the collar and with a herculean over the shoulder throw, slammed him down to the ground head first. The sound of the man’s neck snapping echoed in Steve’s ears as he went for the last scientist. He was a whimpering, weaselly, balding man whose eyes bulged in terror behind his circle lenses as a crazed super soldier stomped towards him. Zola._

_Another dart hit Steve’s chest, not slowing him at all. He yanked it out, lunged over the bodies that littered the floor and seized Zola’s neck. The only other person who could rival Steve’s hatred for him was the weaselly man’s former commander, Red Skull._

_In this moment he resembled a pig going to slaughter. His short and stout figure; how he turned pink as he squealed and begged for his life. Except, unlike an actual pig, Steve would never feel bad about Zola’s suffering._

_“Don’t kill me! Please!” Zola cried again, as Steve continued to glare at him; savoring his fear._

_Killing him would be merciful._

...

Steve’s turbulent thoughts were interrupted by a voice behind him.

“Stevie,” called Bucky in a gentle tone from the office doorway.

Steve had his back to Bucky. His heart was still racing, and he didn’t trust his eyes to look calm.

He glanced over his shoulder, not daring to meet Bucky’s eyes and only looked at him through his peripherals.

“Are you ready?” asked Bucky, “We should’ve left ten minutes ago.”

Steve knew there was no way Bucky could see his bloody finger but he couldn’t stop himself from hiding it. “Almost ready. I just got distracted.”

“By what?”

Steve kept his back to Bucky and forced a chuckle. “My ‘missing’ wallet.”

“Yeah, I hid your wallet,” confessed Bucky. His sly tone gave away his smirk. "It’s your birthday, _ I’m _ paying.” His voice became mocking and it sounded like he was imitating a parent scolding their child. "You can have it back when we get back home."

Still keeping his back to Bucky, Steve shook his head. “Figures.” He shut his desk drawer. “I’ll be ready in a minute.” His anxiety wasn't lessening. “C-could you give me a minute?” Damn it. After years of military experience, he felt he should be more stoic than this.

“Steve?”

“I’m fine.”

There was a slight pause. “Is there anything you need to talk about?” Bucky sounded concerned.

Steve shook his head. “Not now, but maybe after dinner.” He forced another chuckled. “You have to promise not to be too upset.”

“Oh god.”

Even without looking, Steve could tell Bucky was rolling his eyes the way he always did when he was about to scold Steve.

“Maybe you should tell me now?” It didn’t really sound like a suggestion. “We can cancel our dinner plans, eat in, and then watch fireworks from the balcony instead of going to the show.”

Steve shook his head. “I promise I’ll explain later,” he said. “I don’t want there to be any secrets between us.” He smiled softly. “Part of what’ll make a good marriage is communication and trust.”

“Ok,” Bucky still sounded suspicious. “At least tell me why I smell blood.”

Steve still had his back turned as he held up his index finger, where the ruby pearl of blood was now smeared. “Open safety pin in my desk drawer,” he explained. “I’ll be ready in five.”

“Steve.”

The floor creaked behind Steve and Bucky stepped up beside him.

Bucky placed a hand on Steve’s shoulder, “Look at me,” he said gently.

Steve knew that there was no point in trying to be stoic anymore. He turned his head and met Bucky’s eyes.

As soon as they did, the suspicion in Bucky’s eyes changed to certainty. He studied Steve's eyes a bit longer. “Anger, agony, and naked fear. You think I’m not familiar with that look?” he asked. “You just had a flashback, didn’t you?” Bucky didn’t even need to wait for Steve’s verbal confirmation.

Soulmates could communicate just by looking into each other’s eyes.

Bucky nodded, “What should we order? Indian, Chinese, Italian-”

“Pizza and ice cream,” Steve interjected. “Rocky road and the greasiest deep-dish pizzas.” He sighed heavily. “Then, I’ll tell you everything.”

...

Ever since he'd planned the jump back to the 40’s, Steve had pictured getting revenge on Zola. Played out how it could go, over and over in his head, even though it was never part of the original plan. It was supposed to remain a fantasy.

Before going back to the ‘40s, Steve returned Mjolnir, the reality, power, and space stone first. He kept a nanite gauntlet to turn the reality stone back into the Aether and the time stone to fix the orb on Loki’s staff, the broken tesseract, and lastly to attempt it on Natasha’s body (which he’d later find out wouldn’t work). Then his last jumps would be 2012 to return the time and mind stone, and finally back home.

During the 40s part of the plan, he was to jump back to ‘45 on the day that Bucky fell from the train and retrieve his mother’s ring he’d hidden after Bucky’s fall. Back in the day, he'd carried it around since his mother died and always fantasized about proposing to Bucky after they started dating in the ‘30s. A beautiful pipe dream he once thought. But times had changed over the past hundred years and with those times, laws. He could finally indulge that fantasy.

Retrieve a ring. That’s all that was supposed to happen during his visit to the ‘40s. But the more he thought about his plan, the more he thought about that day, and the more his regret ate at him.

Bucky’s horrified scream. Him still reaching out for Steve as he fell. The seventy years of torture he had to endure because Steve never even thought to go back and at least retrieve his body; even if only for Bucky’s family to bury.

So much pain that could’ve been spared.

And then Steve began to think. Simply taking an infinity stone from the past caused an alternate timeline to diverge. An _ unstable _ one specifically. The Old One confirmed this herself. But what if him going back to retrieve the ring caused an alternate timeline? The possibility of any change to the past causing an alternate timeline, even if it be a stable one, was worth considering. What if going back to get his Mother's ring created an alternate timeline where all the terrible things Bucky endured happened all over again. Steve would die before he let that happen.

After taking that into consideration, his plans had changed.

Jump back to the day of the biggest regret of his life, hide the remaining stones just in case he encountered difficulties, retrieve Bucky’s unconscious body from the ravine, and stealthily bring him back to their army. Then Steve’s 40s self wouldn’t attempt suicide by crashing a Valkyrie four days later. The last thing was to get a warning to Peggy (a future founder and Director of SHIELD) about what Zola would do in the future. He figured the 40’s version of him, Bucky, and Peggy could take things from there.

He knew this wouldn’t change what had happened to his Bucky from their original timeline. But at least there’d be a timeline where the love of his life could live without seventy years of trauma. Maybe their younger selves could even get that serene cabin in the woods they promised each other.

Paris seemed like forever ago. His and Bucky’s 1944 selves had no idea what terrible things would happen to them in less than a year.

Steve had managed the first three parts of his revised plan. 

He wasn’t able to risk his 40’s self seeing a mysterious stranger diving after Bucky so he had to wait to catch Bucky in the last seconds of his fall. Sadly, this prevented him from stopping Bucky from smacking against the ravine wall, and knocking himself out. But Steve was at least able to keep Bucky from losing an arm.

Since Steve didn’t have a nanite suit for Bucky, he had to trudge through the miles long ravine to safety, carrying an unconscious Bucky. An hour in, they were jumped by soldiers from the Soviet Union of Hydra that had been ordered to retrieve Schmidt’s ‘test subject’. Bucky was already slightly enhanced thanks to Zola’s experimentations so the soldiers had the foresight to bring tranquilizers. It took seven to finally bring a frenzied Steve down. His last memories before he lost consciousness were of his body losing strength and his eyelids becoming too heavy to lift, as Bucky was ripped from his arms.

When he came to, he lay face up in a windowless room, with the coldness of metal seeping through his clothes. Inky black darkness engulfed the room except for a single garish examiner’s light that glared into his eyes. He squeeze them closed, as his head began pounding. His body felt so heavy. When he tried to lift his head something cold and hard pressed against his neck, choking him. He sputtered, dropping his head back down, unintentionally slamming it against the table. The only movement he could manage was turning his head and wiggling his digits. Whatever was wrapped around his neck was coiled tightly around his body and the table he laid on. Layers of it, it felt like. There was no slack and it was so heavy; Steve could barely draw breath because if it.

The faint rumble of multiple people murmuring reached his ears and he peeked his eyes open just enough to get a better look at his surroundings. From what he could see, a bunch of people stood on the edge of the light’s reach, making their white lab coats appear to be glowing while their faces remained shadowed. One of them stepped forward, allowing Steve to see his face. He wore circle lenses and a vindictive grin.

Instincts took over. Steve immediately tried to grab him, forgetting about his restraints. They grinded against the table; it sounded like metal against metal. Chains, most likely.

Arnim Zola stood before him. The cowardly man didn’t even flinch at Steve’s rage. Despite his sinister grin, he looked intrigued. “I don’t know how this is possible, but it appears there are two of you.”

Steve wanted to shout, but his voice came out weak and hoarse. “Where’s Barnes?” he demanded.

Zola’s smile grew, showing his crooked teeth and crinkling the corners of his eyes. The harsh overhead lighting made long eerie shadows from his age lines and glasses stretch across his face. It almost resembled black goo seeping out of his skin creases, making him look even more insidious. “Why don’t you tell me how there are two Steve Rogers,” he insisted, ignoring Steve’s question.

Steve began to internally panic. Zola couldn’t know about that unless Steve had been out for more than 4 days. His thoughts returned to Bucky.

_ “Where was he? Did they already give him Zola’s version of the serum? Had he already been conditioned?” _ His heart sank. _ “What if he was… oh God.” _

Since Hydra now had a test subject who received Erskine’s perfected serum for the Winter Soldier program, maybe they disposed of the original subject. 

No. Steve couldn’t lose Bucky. Not again.

Zola’s voice interrupted his thoughts.

“Well?”

“Fuck you!” rasped Steve.

He yanked against his chains, attempting to break them. They ground loudly against the table like last time but didn’t even bend. He grunted in pain when the pounding in his head intensified.

Again, Zola still didn’t seem phased. “I wouldn’t bother, Captain. The sedatives we gave you are still wearing off.” He waved another scientist over.

The glint from a disturbingly large needle caught Steve’s eyes. It looked like it was a big enough injection for an elephant.

Zola stepped in closer. “Captain Rogers’ plane went down in February and he was reported missing in March 5th. However, my men inform me that they found you 4 days before Rogers crashed his plane. How is this possible?”

February and possibly March had already gone by? That means that he must’ve been in cryo. But for how long?

When Zola’s question was met with silence he spoke again.

“Give him the ‘Cocktail’, then,” his tone became sadistic, “Take him to Wiedergänger. We need him alert but… malleable for ‘her’.”

Who or what the fuck was ‘Wiedergänger’?

Steve was losing what little patience he had. It must’ve fueled his strength. The chains groaned a bit as he pushed against them again, managing to bend, but still not break them.

“Quickly!” hissed Zola, snatching the needle out of the assistant’s hand and stabbing it into Steve’s neck.

The liquid felt like ice being injected into Steve's veins. “I’ll kill you!” he rasped.

The throbbing in his head worsened as he became dizzy and colors went off kilter. It was like reverting to his pre-serum self just after he was beaten to a pulp by some bully in an alleyway.

“I’ll kill you!” he repeated, this time his words were slurred.

Next, his body became weak and he couldn’t even wiggle his digits anymore.

He became limp and he felt his body being unwrapped from the chains and the hands of two burly guards seize him before they began dragging him out to a hallway that was as poorly lit as the room he woke up in. The clunking of their military boots echoed loudly off its thick stone walls.

With his head hanging forward, he was able to see his clothing. Good, he was still wearing his stealth suit which was housing his nanite quantum suit.

The guards dragged him into a new room and he glimpsed a strange metal chair with a metal ‘halo’ above it. Another garish examiner’s light shone directly above it, making it glint in the otherwise gloomily lit room.

“Are you aware of the term Wiedergänger, Captain Rogers?” Steve heard Zola say. His malevolent tone hadn’t changed.

Steve’s tongue felt fat in his mouth. He tried to swear at Zola again but all he was able to do was sputter as saliva poured out of his mouth.

Arnim chuckled. “It’s German for ‘One who walks again’ and it refers to a type of phenomena… What’s the English word? Zombie?”

Steve was thrown into the chair, even though the restraints hadn’t yet clamped around his arms and ankles, he couldn’t have stood up. Zola obviously knew this because he walked up to Steve, seized his chin, and lifted Steve’s head so their eyes could meet.

“Zombie first came from a word in Kongo called ‘nzambi’ which means ‘spirit of a dead person’, and then later the Haitian word ‘zonbi’; which refers to a person who died but is then brought back to life without speech or free will.” Zola patted the chair that Steve had just been constrained to. He wore a proud smile as his eyes looked over its ‘halo’. “The perfect soldier obeys orders without question. They understand that they are nothing but a tool. Your comrade, Barnes, didn’t seem to understand this.” His proud smile morphed into a cruel one and his tone became mocking. “So, unfortunately I had to use Wiedergänger on him yesterday. He’s still recovering. He’s not as enhanced as you are.”

_ “Thank god! He’s still alive!” _ Steve’s relief was short lived.

Zola’s grip tightened on Steve’s chin and he pushed his head as far to the side as it would go. “Look.”

The white of Steve’s eyes bulged wildly as he kept only his eyes pointed at Zola, glaring at him as best he could. All he wanted to do was rip free of his new restraints and snap the weaselly man’s neck.

“Look,” growled Zola.

The sound of faint raspy breathing was the only reason Steve did. His eyes followed the direction of his head and he was able to see just over his shoulder. His eyes fell upon a gurney and he felt like he was going to throw up.

There lay 1940’s Bucky, strapped to the gurney. He already look partially zombified. He was significantly less muscular than his Winter Soldier self and was dressed in nothing but a pair of ragged pants. His eyes were unblinking and glazed as he stared at the ceiling and faint trails of dried tears caked the sides of his bruised face. He looked so absent of hope, so broken.

Despite the sedative, Steve’s distress made his breathing hasten.

Zola laughed maliciously and yanked Steve’s face back to him. “You wanted to know where Barnes was; there he is.” He leaned in close again. “Since I've indulged you, would you care to do the same for me? Answer my question from before,” he demanded.

Silence.

“I’ll have to resort to more uncivilized methods of extracting information if you don’t tell me now.”

More silence passed, as Steve glared at Zola, who just chuckled amusedly.

“So be it,” he said, doing a poor job of hiding how excited he was. “Before we get started,” he reached into his lab coat and pulled out something familiar, “Would you at least care to tell me what this is instead?”

Steve was already frantic but now he was on the verge of a panic attack. Zola held up Steve’s ‘time turner.’ The only thing that was keeping Steve from having his panic attack was the fact that Hydra hadn’t figured out how to use it. Even if they did, Tony had thankfully programmed it to not work without a quantum suit which Steve still had.

“Last chance,” stated Zola, shaking the gadget in front of Steve’s face. “What is this?”

Steve did his best to look unphased at the question and just kept glaring at him.

Zola still seemed unintimidated and pocketed the gadget. “The ‘Cocktail’ I injected into you is a special blend of my making,” he bragged. “As you’ve probably figured out, it hinders movement,” he dug his nails into Steve’s chin, “but not sensation.”

He paused. Probably waiting for Steve to look scared. Steve denied him that.

“Your facial muscles and your diaphragm are the only muscles that are given any voluntary mobility. I call the mixture, the Canary Cocktail’. Can you guess why, Captain?”

It was fairly obvious. It probably made the receiver ‘sing like a canary’, making it easier to extract information. Possibly by affecting the parts of the brain that control honesty or decision making, therefore affecting one’s openness to persuasion. But Steve didn’t feel like ‘singing’ for Zola. His ability to make his own decisions didn’t seem impaired.

“I’m not telling you shit!” he slurred. “Whatever mind tricks you have-”

“It’s not a trick,” stated Zola. “And I know how strong willed you are. But there’s more than one truth a captive can tell their captors.” He cocked his head, clearly amused by Steve’s confusion. “Fear. Pain. Those are truths that all forms of life share. They go to the core of all of us, yet each creature expresses them differently. Some scream and thrash, some cry, some beg for mercy, or call for people they love,” he flicked his eyes in Bucky’s direction. “Some do a combination of those.”

Steve’s blood boiled. He pictured ripping Zola’s throat out after he was eventually able to break free. Zola again ignored the rage sparking in Steve’s eyes and kept chattering on.

“The ‘Cocktail’s’ specific paralysis is meant to "trap" you like a bird in a cage. When a bird is caged all it can do is sing. And though it may sound nice to its captor, a caged bird’s song is never happy.” His eyes slunk back to Steve.

“You are going to give us the information we ask for, eventually. But until then you can sing a different song for us.”

He let go of Steve’s chin and walked towards another scientist who was standing behind a dashboard. “Set it to ‘stimulate’ instead of ‘wipe’, we don’t want him to forget the information he’s eventually going to tell us.”

Steve heard a mechanical whirr as he was slowly reclined backwards, forcing him to look up at the light above him. Its bulb spun in his vision as appendage restraints closed tightly around his limbs and head clasps snapped loudly over his face. Lastly, the chair’s metal ‘halo’ lowered over his head with a menacing hum.

And then, pain.

More pain than he’d ever felt in his life. Every muscle in his body involuntarily clenched, making him feel even more paralyzed as his muscles kept him frozen stiff like a statue. His nervous system screamed as every nerve in his body felt like it had been lit on fire. He clenched his jaw and squeezed his eyes closed, putting all his energy into suppressing the urge to scream in agony. He didn’t want to give Zola the pleasure. Aside from his pain, all Steve could focus on was when it would end. He forced himself to focus on counting the seconds.

“_ 1…2…3…4…5…6…7…8…9…10…11…12…13…14 _.” The pain stopped. A groan of agony escaped his mouth without his consent and he realized how frantically he was panting.

More of Zola’s sadistic laughter drifted over to his ears. “Do you want to indulge us now, Captain Rogers?”

“Fuck you!” rasped Steve. His heart was hammering against his ribs so hard he thought it might shatter them.

“Hit him again. Up the voltage.”

Steve braced himself and internally counted the seconds again.

_ “…13…14…15,” _ another groan squeezed out of him. _ “...28...29...30,” _ his constraints rattled loudly. The increased voltage was causing him to convulse now instead of just stiffen . His heart continued racing as the machine spasmed all his muscles; it even affected his diaphragm to a certain degree, limiting his breathing. He was only able to take short panicked breaths as he continued to hold in his screaming. _ “…40…41…42,” _he felt himself getting lightheaded and sputtered helplessly. He couldn’t take much more. His eyes rolled back and he felt himself losing consciousness. 

The pain stopped at 45 and he tasted blood. He had bitten into his tongue this time. He gasped for air and immediately began hacking violently when he inhaled some of his own blood.

“Let us know when you’re ready to cooperate,” said Zola, clearly pleased with himself. “You can make this easier or harder for yourself.”

“Fu-fuck you!” panted Steve.

Zola chuckled. “Hit him again. For longer.”

“What if we end up killing him?” asked the assistant scientist.

“He has Erskine’s perfected serum. He’ll be fine. I don’t think we’ll even need to use the adrenaline shots on him.”

Even if Steve didn’t tell them what his gadget was, of course they needed him alive. Probably to attempt turning him into a Winter Soldier. But bottom line. He was going to survive this. All he had to do was get through the torture. He clenched his jaw, bracing himself again.

They hit him 6 more times with 30-50 second intervals, upping the power every other turn. Steve could feel his agony building up inside him like magma in an active volcano. The urge to scream was becoming dangerously irresistible. On the last hit, he couldn’t stop himself from erupting. His suffering tore out of his lungs in a long, uninhibited, inhuman sounding scream that bounced off the concrete walls of the bunker eerily.

“Beautiful,” sighed Zola.

The pain stopped a few seconds later and Steve let out a few broken grunts that were verging on sobs. With every frantic breath he noticed a new pain in his chest area that hadn't left with the voltage. He guessed it was either cracked ribs or a ripped diaphragm from how hard he’d just screamed. He was cracking. Physically and mentally. His rage was the only thing keeping him loosely stitched together. It at least focused him. But it wouldn’t hold forever.

This needed to end. Now.

With Wiedergänger craning his neck back. He stared at the light directly above him, trying to think as his mad scientist captors continued to laugh at his pain. Frustration made his jaw grit and his hands squeeze into fists… Wait. He had to be sure he wasn’t fooling himself and relaxed his hands. Sure enough, he was able to squeeze them into fists again. Then, he rotated his wrists upward and flexed his biceps.

Thank. Fuck. Thank fuck for the serum enhancing his ability to metabolize toxins. His racing heart pumping adrenaline through his body probably helped as well. As best he could from his position, he eyed everybody in the room. The two guards that escorted him in, the assistant scientist, and Zola. None of them were paying attention to their seemingly helpless prisoner. This was going to be easy.

He gave another grunt, this time of effort. The sound of metal creaking came next in the room and then the snap of restraints being broken.

Zola’s face drained; his arrogance vanished like a puff of smoke in a harsh wind. “Where is the tranquilizer gun!?” he screamed at his assistant.

Steve’s eyes darted to the trembling assistant. There was no tranquilizer in sight.

“I-I didn’t think he’d metabolize it that fast!!” he stuttered.

Steve saw a look of pure terror on the assistant’s face before he ran out of the room. It seemed highly unlikely that he would return with the gun.

The two burly guards pointed their handguns at Steve and began firing. Steve was running off pure adrenaline now. He barely felt the three bullets that hit his midsection as he broke free of the rest of his restraints and dove behind Wiedergänger. The torture device gave him little cover so more bullet fire followed. Some bullets flew past him and hit the wall near Bucky. Terror momentarily diluted his rage and Steve whipped his head around to see if Bucky was still ok. He quickly counted the bullet holes on the wall behind Bucky, hoping they matched the number of shots fired he counted. All but one was unaccounted for. A growing stain on Bucky’s nearer thigh caught Steve’s eyes. Fresh blood was trickling from a new wound. 

Steve’s terror was pushed out by his rage returning tenfold. His focus whipped back to his enemies and he rose to his feet with the fires of hell burning in his eyes.

“Don’t kill them, you idiots! They are no use to us dead!” screamed Zola.

The guards begrudgingly lowered their guns and put their fists up instead, returning Steve’s hellish glare.

Steve leaped out from behind Wiedergänger and with superhuman speed, charged them. He tackled one to the ground and hammered his fist into the guard’s mouth, releasing some of the man’s teeth with the first punch.

Zola took this opportunity to race out of the room.

The tackled guard fought back ferociously, punching Steve in his ribs with one hand, exacerbating the pain in Steve’s chest, and clawing at Steve’s face with his other. The hands of the second guard seized Steve’s collar and threw him off the first. For his zeal, that guard got a super soldier kick to the face, knocking him out instantly. As Steve watched the man’s unconscious body crumple to the ground, he felt the first guard seize him and put him into a suffocating head lock. Whatever front teeth the guard still had were cracked by Steve butting his head back into the man’s mouth. Despite his best choke hold, the guard’s aggression was never going to hold up to a super soldier’s raw strength. Steve felt the man’s grip loosen on him and was able to pull out of it and scramble for the gun on the unconscious guard's hip. He finished both men off by firing two headshots in quick succession just as a group of more guards came running in. The first one was holding the tranquilizer gun Zola had screamed for.

Steve and he simultaneously raised their guns and fired. The dart went into Steve’s neck. But like in the ravine, just the one shot barely affected him. He yanked it out of his neck and fired his second shot into the man’s chest. Possessed by rage, Steve fired angrily into the group repeatedly until his gun began clicking uselessly. Half the guards were dead by then. He threw the gun at the rest of them, making them flinch, and then charged.

His trained eyes caught a glint in the light and his body reacted without him telling it to; stopping the knife wielder mid thrust. The man’s wrist snapped in Steve’s grip, and he dropped the knife but he didn’t even get a chance to scream in pain as the knife was thrust hilt deep into his neck. The warm spray of blood hit Steve’s face making him look even more like a crazed berserker. He yanked the knife out of his victim’s throat and glared at the rest of his attackers. Some of them were backing away cautiously. A few feet was as far as they could get before they all began dropping like flies. Steve was out of the room before the last of them toppled lifelessly onto the floor.

Like the bloodthirsty minotaur chasing its prey through the labyrinth, he charged down the hallway he had just been dragged through. His rapid footsteps and his loud huffing echoed off the walls of the halls as he hunted Zola and cut down any other Hydra operative that crossed his path. He rampaged for so long he must’ve gone through the entire bunker before he found Zola, cowering behind a desk in what was probably his office.

Three other scientists were there, including the one who was supposed to return with the tranquilizer gun. Steve grabbed him first, never taking his eyes off Zola, and drove his fallen foe’s knife through their temple. The second closest assistant made the mistake of thinking he could run past Steve while his colleague was dying. Steve punished him by grabbing his hair and delivering a rib shattering kick to the chest before finishing him off by caving his face in against the nearest wall.

Sharp pain pierced Steve’s neck again and he screamed in rage. The third closest scientist was holding a tranquilizer gun. It slipped from his visibly shaking hands and he shrunk into a corner, as Steve ripped the dart from his neck and shattered it in his fist. Blood dripped from Steve’s cut up palm and mixed in with his enemies’ blood on the floor as he stomped over to the terrified man. Steve seized his collar, lifted him up over his head one handed, and threw him headfirst over his shoulder. Zola’s whimper of fear accompanied the sound of his last assistant’s neck snapping.

Another prick of a needle hit Steve’s chest this time. He ripped out the dart, leapt over the dead scientist’s bodies, vaulted over the desk, and grabbed Zola by the neck, smacking another tranquilizer gun out of his hand.

Zola kicked and slapped at Steve helplessly as Steve lifted him up with one arm and pulled him towards his face.

“Don’t kill me! Please!” squealed Zola.

Steve was never one to enjoy his enemy’s pain, but the sheer terror in Zola’s eyes did feel satisfying.

Even during his most intense fights Steve was able to remain reasonably composed and detached. But the moment he knew what they had done to Bucky, he snapped. The torture only fueled his rage. After that, all he could see was red. And even though his rampage was coming to an end, he still saw red. It was dripping down the walls of the bunker, spilt all over the floors, and splattered all over his body.

Now it was Zola’s screams that echoed in the otherwise silent bowels of the bunker. Steve had massacred everybody. He dragged Zola back to Wiedergänger and shoved him into it.

“Stay,” he growled, after retrieving his ‘time turner’ from Zola’s pocket.

Despite the restraints being broken, Zola didn’t budge. He just watched Steve, his eyes bulging in fear.

Steve leaned in close. “You touch him,” he pointed towards Bucky, “And I’ll rip your innards out with my bare hands… after I individually break each of your bones. Understand?”

Zola didn’t respond. He was just visibly shaking.

“If you run and I’ll catch you and do that anyways,” continued Steve. “You just saw what Erskine’s serum is capable of. Can you outrun a super soldier?”

Zola shook his head frantically.

Steve cracked an empty grin. “So you understand? You can make this easy for yourself or hard,” he growled.

“I’ll stay,” said Zola, in a barely audible voice.

“Good.”

Steve left the room, stomped back to where he first woke up, grabbed his chains, and stomped back to where Zola was. And just like he’d promised, Zola hadn’t budged from the chair.

“How long until Barnes is lucid again?” demanded Steve, wrapping the chains tightly around Zola’s body and the back of the torture device.

“It usually takes a few days,” answered Zola.

Usually? Steve knew he’d been out for at least two months but him and Bucky were captured at the same time. How much longer than Steve had Bucky been unfrozen for Hydra to have done this multiple times to him? Had Bucky even been frozen at all?

Steve’s anger obviously hadn’t even begun to subside; it was merely manageable now. He felt it flare thinking about Bucky’s state and yanked on the chains harder than necessary, squeezing a grunt of pain out of Zola.

“I want him to recover faster.” he demanded, barely keeping his voice even.

“A shot of adrenaline usually helps.”

“Where do you keep those?”

Zola nodded towards a table by Wiedergänger’s dashboard where a small box sat. Steve rushed over and ripped it open. It was full of a bunch of unmarked needles. He looked over his shoulder and glared suspiciously at Zola before bringing the box over.

Zola yelped, as Steve jabbed a needle into his thigh. His pupils dilated, his already panicked breathing hastened, and he began to shake even more. Other than that, he didn’t have any adverse reaction to the shot.

“Can’t be too certain,” growled Steve, “This better work.”

Catching a glimpse of himself in Zola’s glasses, Steve saw his enemy’s blood that was still dripping down his face. Not a comforting face for Bucky to wake up to. He remembered killing a few people in a bathroom and left the Wiedergänger’s room to go wash up. He returned minutes later dripping wet but at least clean.

He grabbed another dart and walked over to Bucky. For a moment all his rage left him, and it was replaced with sorrow and empathy. Bucky’s eyes were still glazed and he was mumbling incoherently, just like the first time Steve had ever saved him from Hydra. It made Steve's mind momentarily go back to the Bucky in his timeline

_ “You had to endure this for 70 years?” _

Steve stroked Bucky’s cheek and he felt his eyes begin to brim with tears.

_“You’re so brave.” _

Not knowing how far gone Bucky was or if he even remembered much, Steve injected the dart into Bucky’s thigh that hadn’t been shot and waited. A few seconds later, Bucky sputtered to life, coughing and gasping as his body jerked underneath his restraints. Like the chains that had bound Steve earlier, Bucky’s restraints barely let Bucky move.

“Buck!” exclaimed Steve. The needle clattered to the ground and Steve cupped Bucky’s face.

Bucky didn’t say anything at first. His eyes whipped around the room frantically and he continued struggling against his restraints.

“Hey,” said Steve in the gentlest tone he could.

It took a moment for Bucky to stop panicking enough to look at Steve. But instead of expressing relief, Bucky’s eyes expressed sorrow. “You’re not real. Just like all the other times,” his voice shook, “Zola showed me the newspaper clipping. You’re dead.”

It seemed Hydra hadn’t been wiping Bucky yet. Instead, they were attempting to break him first. Any relief Steve felt from Bucky remembering him was short lived.

Steve’s tears spilled over his lids and he began to quietly weep. He collapsed his upper body over Bucky’s and tried to hug him, forgetting about the table Bucky was strapped to. Frustrated, he ripped the leather straps away with a single tug to each, pulled Bucky up to a sitting position, and wrapped him up into a protective hug.

“I’m real this time,” he said, through more tears. “And I’m getting you out of here. I swear.”

Bucky was limp in Steve’s arms. It seemed like he didn’t have the strength to embrace Steve back. “Okay, if you say so, Stevie.” he said quietly. “Can you at least stay a little longer this time?” he asked. “Before you disappear.”

Steve pulled back to look into Bucky’s exhausted eyes and blinked away more tears. “Sure,” he laid Bucky back down, “Just rest for now.”

Bucky forced a weak smile and closed his eyes.

Steve turned away from him and his hands clenched into white knuckled fists again. His sorrow was instantly pushed out by his rage returning full throttle as his eyes fell back onto Zola and stomped back over to him.

All the color drained from Zola’s pink face. “I-I cooperated,” he stuttered, “to ‘make things easy’. Are you going to… let me live?”

Steve glared at him, “In a way.”

Confusion mixed with the terror on Zola’s face.

Without a word of clarification, Steve walked over to Wiedergänger’s dashboard and looked over the controls. Thankfully Steve learned German during his time as a WW2 soldier. He turned a dial, cranking it up all the way and hovered his hand over a big red button.

“When I said you could make this easy or hard for yourself, I never specified which option granted you which outcome,” admitted Steve, mimicking Zola's sadistic smile and powering on Wiedergänger. “By the time anybody finds you, you won’t even be a zombie. You’ll be a ghost of yourself. Never to be resurrected.”

Any pleading Zola was going to do was cut off by his screams of pain.

Steve ignored the screaming and ran back down the hall to the office he found Zola in. The door read, ‘Dr. Arnim Zola’. He rummaged through the desk drawers until he found Zola’s notes on the Winter Soldier program and future infiltration of Hydra into SHIELD, then grabbed a coat off the hanger in the office. It had Hydra’s emblem, but it would at least keep Bucky warm when they left the bunker. He then hurried back to where Zola’s screams were coming from, put the coat onto Bucky.

Even though he was conscious, Bucky’s body was still limp, as Steve stroked his face tenderly and scooped him up into his arms bridal style.

“I’m getting you out of here,” he murmured, “And then, we can go home.”

He carried Bucky out to the bunker’s hangar and examined all the aircraft, wracking his brain how he was going to be able to land and take off on uneven icy terrain. Until he spotted a two-seater VTOL jet with a high caliber turret. The only problem left was going to be squeezing three people in it.

Saving his 40s self was significantly easier than saving Bucky. Thank goodness for the serum enhancing his memory. He flew out to the last coordinates he remembered before he crashed the Valkyrie. Luckily, the ice hadn’t shifted too much in however long he’d been out, and he was able to spot some of the Valkyrie’s wreckage poking out of the ice. A few rounds of turret fire around the wreckage, broke the thick ice up enough for him to dive down into the glacial waters below.

The hypothermia inducing cold was the easiest thing to endure, as he dove deeper to fish his younger self out. The toughest thing he had to do was relive his feelings from when he was plummeting to his supposed death. Fresh sorrow from recently watching the love of his life fall to his death. Rage that avenging Bucky’s death hadn’t brought him any peace. Fear that his suicide attempt wouldn’t work… fear that it would. And hope of seeing Bucky again in a better place as he slowly drifted off. It had taken so long for his body to succumb…

This time he was grateful for the serum making him resistant to hypothermia. He emerged from the water gasping, with his younger self in his arms.

Three more stops in the 40s. They were all in Great Britain.

Steve landed in a field a few hours later in rural Britain with the first moments of dawn making the horizon blush a light pink. Despite his cold and soggy suit, the chill of the icecaps left his bones the moment he stepped out into the warm country air. It had to be summer for it to be this warm before the sun was even up. His plane had gone down in February of ‘45, so maybe it was summer of the same year.

He ‘borrowed’ disguises from a nearby farm for him, and his 40s self, then hotwired a car and drove to a hospital in London with his wet stealth suit drying in the wind as they drove.

He parked away from what cars were in the parking lot and slid Bucky out of his stolen Hydra jacket. After pulling the front of his hat down, Steve kept his face lowered to further hide who he was as he carried Bucky, who still hadn’t stopped shivering since leaving the Valkyrie wreckage, inside.

A couple of nurses hurried over to them, bringing a gurney. Though barely conscious, Bucky grasped onto Steve’s hand as they laid him onto it.

“Patient’s name?” asked one of the nurses.

“James Buchanan Barnes. He’s one of Captain America’s commandos and was assumed dead…” he still had no idea how long he’d been captive, so he just made a guess based off the current summer like weather, “A few months ago.”

The nurses frowned at him. “You must be confused,” said a blonde one with kind, green eyes, “Barnes was reported KIA four years ago. This couldn’t be him.”

Steve's heart sank. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It was 1949? His heart sunk. He was in cryo, for four years while Bucky was being tortured all over again. He may as well have _ voluntarily _ iced himself again if he was going to let history repeat itself.

“Oh… yeah,” he said, his voice barely audible. “I don’t know what I was thinking, but, it’s him,” he insisted. “He can confirm his identity when he’s more lucid.

“Okay. And who are you? Are you in relation to him?” asked the blonde nurse.

But Steve pulled his hand out of Bucky’s and began hurrying away before the nurse could finish her second question. He was nearing the door they’d just entered the hospital through when he heard it. It was so faint, even his enhanced hearing barely picked it up with the distance.

“Stevie,” whispered Bucky. It came out as a soft plea. _ Don’t leave me. _

Steve’s feet immediately stopped without conscious input. It had always been his siren’s song; his name on Bucky’s lips. Even though following a siren’s call, potentially lead to danger, Steve didn’t care. He risked his life repeatedly for Bucky in two centuries. He risked being thrown into an asylum back in the 1930’s for loving Bucky. He fought to the death, giving up his freedom and credibility for Bucky in the 21st century. Because none of those things mattered without Bucky. He looked back over his shoulder to answer the call again; further risking his identity being revealed.

“I’ll be back,” he called to Bucky. _ “You won’t be alone for long,” _ he continued in his head, as if Bucky could hear his thoughts. “ _ I promise.” _

Sadness, terror, and confusion contorted Bucky’s pale face. His hand was outstretched, reaching for Steve.

If Steve went back, he knew he’d never leave. He practically had to run out the hospital doors.

There was no time to waste. He had to hurry back to his 40’s self before he finished ‘thawing’ and regained consciousness. In hindsight, he should’ve taken his younger self to SSR’s London headquarters first, but Bucky had been looking worse every minute of their journey.

When Steve was first ‘defrosted’ in his original timeline, his enhanced systems that put him into a state of suspended animation due to subzero temperatures reversed the process in a matter of hours after the element of cold was removed.

So, all that had to be done to thaw himself out was melt the ice off him, put him in dry clothes, and set him in a warm environment. He was never told just how long it took the first time though and it had already been nearly two hours thanks to their drive from the countryside. Steve’s pulse thundered in his ears as he rushed back to their car.

A sigh of relief whooshed out of him as he found his younger self still unconscious in the back seat and the evidence from the Hydra bunker tucked under the collar of his new clothes. Not a single twitch stirred younger Steve’s body but his skin was beginning to regain its color.

A short drive later and older Steve was parking the car in an alleyway a few blocks away from the London headquarters of SSR. Now, all he had to do was wait.

Since Steve didn’t have a watch, time ticked on tediously slow. His eyes darted nervously underneath the shadow of his cap at people walking by the mouth of the alleyway. Hoping none of them would come over to investigate the strange man in a car parked at the back of an alleyway. Ever so often, a person would glance at him but keep walking, their pace remaining uninterrupted. Occasionally, a person would slow their pace and their eyes would linger a bit longer, before deciding not to get involved, and would return to their original pace.

Steve knew ahead of time; this wasn’t the smartest place to park but he was worried about his younger self waking up mid drive on the way to a farther away, more secure place. After what he guessed was about another hour, his nerves felt like frayed wires splitting from overuse. He began to consider driving to another spot before he heard his younger self _ finally _ stir. Taking his cue to leave, Steve grabbed his stealth/nano suit, exited the car, crossed the street, and watched.

Even after fighting his 2012 self, watching another version of himself walk around still felt so surreal.

His younger self emerged from the alley way holding the papers from the bunker. He looked alert, suspicious, confused, and shocked all at once. But the more he surveyed his surroundings, the more he seemed to recognize the street he was on.

Just before their eyes met, older Steve ducked his head and began walking in the direction of SSR hoping that his younger self could figure out where to go next.

He walked down the street, turned a corner, and peeked back around it in time to see his younger self driving out of the alley and heading his way. A familiar look of determination burned in his younger selves’ eyes from behind the car’s steering wheel.

A weak smile lifted the corners of older Steve’s mouth. Even during his lowest of lows, that stubbornness is what helped him push forward; if he allowed it to. The only times he ever worked against it was when he thought he’d lost Bucky for good. The first was his Valkyrie suicide attempt. The second was when he rather a brainwashed Bucky beat him to death on a helicarrier. And the third was after the snap. The serum never left physical scars after healing him, but he’d always remember the sight of blood painting his forearms.

The fresh pain of losing Bucky also showed in his younger selves’ eyes. It had still only been four days for him since Bucky’s fall. He had no idea that his Bucky was less than a 30-minute drive away.

Steve made a mental note of staying a few days longer in the alternate timeline to make sure everything kept going according to plan as he jogged towards SSR.

He watched his younger self stumble up its steps and then, chaos ensued. The first person to recognize Steve shouted from inside the building, which acted as a domino effect with everybody else’s reaction.

Steve chuckled to himself and walked against the crowd that was rushing towards the building to get a glimpse of a hero who’d returned from the dead.

He walked through the streets for about an hour until he found a familiar tavern.

_ “Please still be in there,” _ he internally pleaded.

Unlike most buildings, the tavern was still in the process of being rebuilt since the war. Homes, hospitals, schools, banks, police stations, and other more important buildings had been prioritized before pubs.

“Can I help you?” asked a worker as Steve approached the building.

He was a burly man, about 5’10, with a full mocha colored beard, stern green eyes, a bald head, and looked to be in his late forties to early fifties. He spoke politely to Steve, but he looked a little impatient. Probably just wanted to get back to work as soon as possible. The city still had much more rebuilding left to be done.

“Could I check under your floorboards?” Steve only realized how weird that sounded the moment the words left his mouth. He was never good with easing into things. Bulldozing through things was his forte and being a soldier for so long only exacerbated that.

The worker was understandably offended. “No,” he said firmly. His thick cockney accent enhanced his gruff voice. He crossed his thick arms and bunched his bushy eyebrows to further emphasize his answer.

As per usual, Steve was not easily deterred. He persisted, attempting to reason with the worker. “I know you’re in the middle of rebuilding, but,” perhaps he should’ve started with that, “I left a memento here back in ‘45. Could I see if it’s still here?” 

The worker raised his eyebrows out of slight intrigue but he kept his arms crossed. “Memento?”

Steve wore a whisper of a smile. “An engagement ring.”

The worker’s hard expression softened a bit more when he saw the ghost of regret in Steve’s eyes. 

“I uh, I lost somebody special back in the war,” he continued. “The dream was marriage, but they died before I could ask.”

The man’s eyes became sympathetic. “How’d she die? If you don’t mind me asking.”

Steve chose his next words carefully, mixing truth with lies. “She was in this city during the bombing. I left the ring I was going to use, in this pub under some floorboards.” He felt a lump rising in his throat. “Her body was never retrieved, so, this is where I ‘buried’ her, in a way.”

The worker paused as if giving a moment of silence to Steve's lost loved one. “I’m sorry, mate. Where in the pub did you leave it?”

Steve gave a terse smile. “I hope you haven’t redone the cellar.”

The man shook his head. “Didn’t need much work, just a few loose floorboards that needed new nails. Only the ground floor was damaged and since it’s in a musty old cellar anyways.” He shrugged. “Don’t see you why I can’t let you poke around down there.”

“Thank you!” exclaimed Steve, his chest swelling. Elation swept him up like a gust of wind and carried him inside, giving the worker a start as the robust blonde rushed past him. Steve found the door to the cellar and barreled loudly down the stairs, stopping abruptly as his feet hit the bottom step of the dark cellar. His elation had come and gone just as quickly as a real gust of wind. He looked around. The atmosphere felt so different from upstairs. Nothing like the fresh smell of new lumber and the comforting sound of lively chatter from the workers. The cellar’s atmosphere was chilly, heavy, stagnant, and just… lonely. The air was thick with must, making Steve’s nose scrunch.

It might’ve been his enhanced sense of smell or his past haunting him, but even over the must, he caught a faint wisp of ash. The last time he came here, the dust was still settling from the recent bombing and the strong smell of ash and gunpowder had stung his nose. His eyes drifted around the cellar and settled on a far back corner. More memories resurfaced. The emptiness of remembering that this tavern was one of the last places him and Bucky felt happy together in the 40s. The bitter taste of the liquor he downed as he mourned the lost love of his life. The sting of his puffy eyes from crying nonstop. Peggy’s words of comfort fading into white noise as his rage began to overpower his sorrow.

So many ghosts.

When people talked about ‘taking a trip down memory lane’, it was typically a figure of speech. It never referred to literally returning to your past. He walked to the corner, knelt, and dragged his hands over a few floorboards, preparing to dig up another ghost from his past.

The gruff grunt of somebody clearing their throat made Steve jump. “You look like you could probably rip the floorboards up with your bare hands for such an important memento.” Steve looked over his shoulder to find the worker from before. “But won’t this make it easier?” The worker held up a hammer.

For the first and probably the last time in his life, Steve laughed at his own recklessness. Showcasing his super strength by upending a floor with his bare hands would seem a bit suspicious.

“Yes, thank you,” he said, giving the worker a soft smile.

“I’m Tim, by the way,” said the worker walking over to hand him the hammer. After Steve took the hammer, Tim stared at him expectantly in the following silence, clearly waiting for Steve’s name. He raised a bushy eyebrow when the silence got awkward.

Realization hit Steve and he internally panicked. With all the chaos he’d recently gone through, he’d managed a disguise but not an alias to go with it. He muttered a random name and lowered his head, worried that Tim might now see through his disguise within close proximity.

“Thank you again,” he said sheepishly, holding up the hammer and keeping his head lowered.

Probably assuming Steve was suddenly feeling bashful about his memento, Tim chuckled, “Well, I’ll leave you to it.”

As soon as the door to the cellar shut, Steve went to work. He popped off three floorboards before he saw them. An old drinking glass, and the empty bottle of liquor Steve consumed after Bucky’s fall. His mother’s old ring was under the upside-down glass.

As soon as he saw the ring, it was like the sun breaking through the clouds. And he remembered where he was going after his time traveling mission was all over: home.

…

Three deep dish meat lovers pizzas and a gallon tub of rocky road ice cream later, all mostly eaten by Steve, Bucky had gone ghostly pale. Any food Bucky had eaten, looked like it was about to make its way back up his esophagus. They sat facing each other, on their living room couch surrounded by empty food packaging.

Steve watched Bucky shut his eyes, take a deep breath, then hold it… keep holding it… keep holding it… keep holding it… keep holding it… keep holding it...

“You’re turning blue, Buck.”

Bucky’s eyes shot open and locked with Steve’s, glaring at him, but still didn’t exhale. About twenty more seconds passed, making Steve stress sweat. He knew Bucky could smell the pungent odor, from the chortle that finally loosed the air from Bucky’s lungs.

“Aside from your Vormir heist, this is the pinnacle of recklessness,” remarked Bucky. There was a slight tremor in his voice from anger.

Steve knew Bucky wanted to yell but Steve being the little shit he is, decided to push his luck. “Reckless, but worth it.”

Bucky’s nostrils flared.

Steve tensed up even more. “At least I hope it was?” he said, with a nervous smile. He pushed his luck a bit more and touched Bucky’s left ring finger, brushing his Mother’s now fitted ring.

Bucky gave a terse nod. “Yes,” he said after a shorter pause. His expression finally softened. “You could’ve just gotten the ring and come back though. I wouldn’t be mad at you for that.”

“I’d be mad at myself,” said Steve, “I can’t sit back and let people suffer, especially people I love. If there’s something to be done to help them, I’m always going to do it.”

Bucky plopped his flesh palm over Steve’s hand. “Everybody knows that, Stevie.” They shared a chuckle. “But, so many other things could’ve gone wrong. What if instead of me, you became ‘The Fist of Hydra’ in an alternate timeline the Avengers could never reach? What if you died?” His voice became quiet “I… I can’t lose you again.”

“And I couldn’t leave you at Hydra’s mercy,” murmured Steve, “Not again and especially not willingly. I’m just as responsible for your pain as they are. There was no reason for me to not at least go back for your body in our timeline. I wasn’t going to let that happen again. Not even in an alternate timeline.”

“You should’ve at least taken help with you on this mission,” scolded Bucky. “_I _ would’ve gone with you if only to talk you out of it.”

“Why do you think I didn’t bring you?” 

Bad joke. It made Bucky’s nostrils flare again.

Steve forced a smile, “I just didn’t want you to have to relive the worst years of your life again, in any way.” He shook his head ashamedly, “I still failed.”

“Four years is nothing compared to seventy,” Bucky reasoned.

Steve couldn’t really disagree. But knew he was always going to feel guilty either way. They both knew that.

Bucky rubbed Steve’s hand. “Why didn’t you tell me all this sooner?”

“You were so stressed about making amends with Tony, I didn’t want to add to your plate.”

“Well, I appreciate your honesty. Even though I basically had to corner you.”

They shared another laugh before Bucky continued.

“I know because of our pasts, being secretive was always required; in our private life when we lived together during the 30s and later in our ‘professions’. But next time, just tell me these things. I’ll work on being more honest too and we can overcome the past together.”

Steve felt his chest swell. “I love you.” It left his lips as little more than a whisper but his soul was screaming it.

“I love you too, Stevie.” Bucky leaned in to kiss Steve; softly, intimately. “And thank fuck you’re retired,” he murmured against Steve’s lips. Steve nipped at Bucky’s playfully. “Now all I have to do is worry about you tripling the food budget.”

Steve stole one more kiss before pulling away and looking over the empty food containers that lay scattered around them. “You barely got any of this. We should order more. I’ll pay this time. Where _ did _ you hide my wallet?”

Bucky smirked, pretending to think. “Hmmm. It’s such a good hiding spot, I might want to use it again.” 

Steve stared for a moment. When ever Bucky smiled like that, he echoed his younger self. Charming, confident, and carefree. He had more crows feet than his younger self and some white hair peppering his scruff, but to Steve, he only got better with age. He was still the man Steve would always want to spend the rest of his life with.

Steve felt his face heat up. Bucky’s smirk had worked on so many girls in the 30s. Now, it was all for Steve. He struggled to stay composed by attempting to rival Bucky’s smirk with one of his own, but he was only able to smile softly. His eyelashes swept low and rested over his cheeks as he lowered his eyes shyly. A few thundering heartbeats passed before he spoke again. “Let me pay, Buck.” He lifted his lashes to look at Bucky who was still smirking, “If only to make up for stressing you out.”

“If that’s how you want to pay me back for all the stress you’ve caused me, give me all your military back pay.”

“Fair enough.”

With his smirk becoming a triumphant smile, Bucky began gathering up their mess, piling it onto the nearby coffee table. “I’ll pay, Steve. It’s still your birthday.” His voice sounded kind enough but there was still an undertone of lingering tension. 

What Steve had just told him was a lot to digest and they both knew they’d talk about it more at a later date. Now, it was time to enjoy what was left of Steve’s birthday.

Steve scrambled for a way to lighten the atmosphere. “If it makes you feel any better, our alternate younger selves probably got that cottage in the woods we talked about.” An idea struck him. “Remember Paris?”

The tips of Bucky’s ears turned pink. “Yes,” he said. He had the empty tub of ice cream on his lap. Steve watched him swipe his finger along its inside collecting some sugary residue. “Why?”

“How about revisiting it for our honeymoon?” suggested Steve, using a tone he knew Bucky couldn’t resist. “We can see if we can get our old room.”

Bucky’s eyes had a nostalgic twinkle shining deep inside them. He brought his fingertip that was coated in melted ice cream and licked it clean. His lips lingered on it for a moment before he pulled it out with a faint ‘pop.’ Knowing the dirty thoughts he was giving Steve, he raised his eyebrows and smiled innocently. “You mean the room with a king-sized bed and thick walls?” he asked. His pupils widened, betraying his playful tone. “The room with the shower that could fit two people?”

Steve’s pulse raised. He nodded as their eyes began to bore into each other. “The one with sturdy bathroom counters.”

“The comfy area rug?”

“A surprisingly durable table.”

“The floor length window overlooking the Eiffel tower?”

Steve’s eyes went to Bucky’s lips. Bucky chose that moment to drag his tongue over them. Smart ass. “Yep. That’s the room.” Steve wasn’t going to lose. “The only thing is that we might need to ask them to nail the bed to the floor next time.”

Steve’s air left him with a startled ‘oof’ as the ice cream tub was flung aside and Bucky pounced on him, kissing him again. The softness of the kiss from before was gone and replaced with vigor. Despite having over 200lbs of super soldier on him, Steve felt like he was floating as Bucky settled on his lap, wrapping all four of his limbs around Steve. It felt like Bucky never wanted to let go. Steve knew the feeling. When Bucky broke for air, Steve found himself chasing Bucky’s lips.

“Paris was paradise,” admitted Bucky, his lips inches from Steve’s. “Our own piece of heaven on a hellish earth. But I want to go somewhere new.”

Steve pushed out his lower lip, pretending to be disappointed.

“Put that lip away, or I’ll bite it,” teased Bucky.

“You promise?” He reveled in Bucky’s eye roll.

“After your unsanctioned time heist within a time heist, I definitely get to pick our honeymoon destination.”

_ Unsanctioned. Heist. _ Steve’s very first mission was that. The very mission that changed his life and intertwined it with Bucky’s forever. He’d do it a million times over just to ensure Bucky could smile once. Making the love of your life happy was the easiest thing anybody could do. Steve gazed at his and brushed away a wisp of hair that had fallen onto Bucky’s face.

“Sure, Buck,” he murmured, “Anything you want.”


	4. A past full of scars but a future full of hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Smut awaits in this chapter. Enjoy ;).  
Also, Bucky and Natasha's friendship is explored.

“For the record, Steve, this is torture,” whined Bucky.

“I know, Buck,” said Steve, smiling ‘innocently.’

Bastard.

Bucky rolled his eyes. “I’m just saying, I’m not out of line by complaining that we haven’t had sex in almost a century.”

It was no exaggeration. Their last time having sex was a week before Bucky’s fall from the train in ‘45. Steve had visited Bucky many times when he was taking refuge in Wakanda, but they stuck to soft kisses by the lake and napping together under treetops because Bucky was still healing, and Steve didn’t want to pressure him.

“Just three more weeks and then we can have each other,” reassured Steve.

“Again, why do we have to wait until our wedding night? It’s not like it’d be our first time.”

“I know,” panted Steve, “And in the past we never thought we’d ever be able to get married. Now that we can, I want to at least try to do things properly.”

‘Do things properly?’ That didn’t make sense, but Bucky didn’t truly care at the moment. His pupils were dilated, his breathing was heavy, and his heart was racing. The tip of his cock was as red as a cherry and pearling with pre-cum. Another stroke of his hand smeared it across his shaft. He was so…

“Close?” asked Steve. His eyes burned with desire. His pupils were so wide, barely any of their iris’s bright blue was visible.

Steve lay on his back, stretched out on their couch, grinning mischievously. His own cock was ripe and hard in his hand, his legs spread generously wide, and his free hand behind his head, accentuating his arm muscles. His pants and underwear had been discarded on the floor with reckless abandon and his T-shirt was pulled up exposing his abs and the underside of his developed pecs.

“Yeah,” panted Bucky, “I’m close.” He faced Steve and was bent over the arm of the couch opposite of Steve with his pants and underwear pulled down to his ankles.

“I like how you picked your favorite position this time,” cooed Steve.

“It’s the least I can do for myself, until we can finally do this together,” teased Bucky, licking his lips. “What are you doing to me?” His voice shook with excitement.

“I’m sliding inside you, nice and deep.”

A moan escaped Bucky. A shiver ran up his spine and his thumb slid over his tip again. “Oh, fuck,” he breathed. “I can feel you inside me. Your cock feels so good.” He locked eyes with Steve. “Don’t look away.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” cooed Steve. “Just tell me how you want it, Buck.”

Bucky was practically drooling. “Hard and fast. Don’t go easy on me.”

Steve licked his lips. “I just grabbed your hips and I’m fucking into you, the way you like it.”

Bucky’s knees buckled as if Steve had just rammed into him. He caught himself with his free arm.

“Remember the last time I fucked you like this?” continued Steve.

“Yeah.” Bucky’s voice was a whimper, desperate and wanton. He tightened his grip on his swollen shaft, pushing against every raised vein and upped his stroking pace.

Steve’s voice deepened. A light husk peppered it, but it was still smooth like melted chocolate. Sensual yet dominant. “Remember how our sweaty bodies felt against each other? How I rutted you into that mattress?”

“Yeah,” Bucky panted.

“How I slammed into you until your legs shook and you cried out? We went on so long we ran out of condoms.”

Bucky could barely form words. “Yeah,” he whimpered again. His thoughts were focused on how good it was going to feel when Steve fucked him for real.

“Remember how warm my cum felt inside you?” His voice deepened even more. “When I bred you?”

That was it. Bucky gave himself a few more strokes and he exploded. He cried out, proudly and lasciviously as his cum poured out of him in hot streams, spilling over his hand and onto the couch arm. All control of his body left him, making him writhe wildly and pant like a feral beast as the waves of his climax rolled over him.

Apparently, that was too much for Steve. He followed Bucky right over that edge. His climax was quieter, with his long lashes falling over his cheeks and grunts staggering his breathing as he shot his load all over his stomach and chest.

Bucky never got tired of seeing that. He watched Steve hungrily, a satisfied smile stretching his lips as his climax gave way to the utopian bliss of afterglow.

“Fuck,” panted Steve as his breathing slowed. His own afterglow shined from deep within his own eyes, inviting Bucky over.

Bucky happily accepted the invitation. He pulled up his pants, crawled over the couch arm, and kissed Steve, tasting a drop of Steve that had made it up to Steve’s waiting lips. “Just three more weeks,” he recited, nuzzling Steve’s neck.

“Just three more weeks,” confirmed Steve.

“This feels like cheating though,” said Bucky.

“Technically-”

“TeChNiCHalLy!” jested Bucky, yanking his head back to look at Steve. “Technically, it’s not reckless jumping onto a grenade if it’s a dud?”

“Exactly.”

“You didn’t  _ know _ it was a dud.”

Steve just smirked.

Bucky tried to counter with a frown, but his lips soon shook from the effort. Steve laughed first and Bucky snickered in response. Bucky knew there was no arguing with this idiot, even though this idiot was his. He gazed into Steve’s dilated pupils. Steve resembled his Nomad self with his overgrown hair and beard that he’d been growing back. Memories of Steve cuddled up against him in Wakanda wafted into Bucky’s mind on a breeze of endorphins. 

“Three more weeks,” repeated Bucky, reality setting in. Disbelief and excitement were present in his tone. “Stevie, we’re getting married in three weeks,” he declared, as if that were news to the two of them.

“I can’t wait either,” said Steve.

“Do you think we forgot anything?” Bucky had become jittery entering the last month before their big day. He wasn’t getting cold feet or anything. He just wanted everything to go smoothly.

“There’s no way we forgot anything,” insisted Steve. “We reserved the location, sent out invitations, arranged the catering, had the wedding rings made, and ordered the tux’s months ago.” Steve kissed Bucky again. “We planned the honeymoon. We both are getting something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.”

“I thought only brides had to have those last four things.”

Steve shrugged. “Men typically don’t wear engagement rings, but we are,” he said, brushing his fingertips over Bucky’s left ring finger. The jeweler had done a great job resizing his Mother’s old wedding band. “Plus, it’s a new century anyways. New times call for new morals. The ‘old’ item represents continuity, the ‘new’ is optimism, something ‘borrowed’ is for happiness, and something blue, is supposed to represent purity, fidelity, and love. I think grooms should abide by those principles as well. Don’t you?”

After nearly a century of loyalty, was that even a question? Fidelity is what made them never stop fighting for each other. It’s what made Steve come back to his soulmate, even after being presented with the opportunity of a simpler life in the 40’s with an alternate ‘less broken’ version of Bucky.

“Yes,” murmured Bucky.

Steve dragged a hand up Bucky’s spine. Lingering lust and some intrigue shown in his eyes.

“How come you never take your shirt off when we ‘cheat’?” Steve asked.

Bucky hoped Steve couldn’t tell his smile was now being forced. “Zero patience. Convenience,” he teased.

Before Steve could rebut, Bucky leaned back in, kissing him again, deeper this time.

“Mmm. If you keep kissing me like that, we’ll have to go  again,  right now,” murmured Steve.

“How ‘bout we save that vigor for the honeymoon? That’ll make it even better.”

“Deal,” said Steve. He leaned in a final time, but Bucky pulled back before he could kiss him again.

With a playful grin, Bucky dismounted Steve and stood up. “This poor couch,” he said, eyeing the faded stains of their escapades. “Well, it’s your turn to ‘clean’ it, this time,” he said, his grin grew into a toothy smile. “I’m gonna go shower.”

It had been nearly 10 months since The Blip and surprisingly the world hadn’t fallen into utter chaos since then. There were crises that warranted the Avenger’s help here and there but nothing as bad as a purple Titan threatening to destroy all life in the universe. Anything after that felt like paradise.

Bucky enjoyed the peace; it allowed him and Steve to relax and focus on their wedding before Bucky became an Avenger. It’s true that Steve was loaded from 70 years of back pay, and even though a lot of people would prefer an easy life with no work, that’s not what Bucky wanted. It felt stagnant, and stagnation reminded  him of cryo when he was Hydra’s prisoner.  Unlike Wakanda’s sophisticated cryo chambers, Hydra’s were archaic. They were at least able to preserve him physically, but he was still marginally conscious in Hydra’s chambers. Every second of the years he spent frozen, felt like its own eternity. It almost made him yearn to be unfrozen and wiped, even if just to break the monotony.

Getting back out on the field made him uneasy too, but he wanted to be out there making a difference. Stopping evil to lower the chances of anybody suffering like he did, helped to ease his perpetually heavy conscience. At least the fighting would be his choice this time.

Bucky toweled off after his shower and threw on some jeans, black boots, and a matching Henley shirt before grabbing his gym bag which had his workout clothes in it. “Be back in a few hours,” he called over his shoulder with his foot out their front door.

“Tell Romanoff I said ‘Hi’,” Steve called from their living room.

…

Bucky found Natasha in one of the lounges of the Avenger’s Suites. Reconstruction since the Blip had just finished last week. Before that, they’d been sparring in the yard since his training began.

“You reek of afterglow,” she said.

“What?” scoffed Bucky.

She sat on a couch facing the room’s entrance, eyeing him over the brim of a pristine white mug. One of the generic ones that Tony bought after reconstruction for everybody to use. While everybody else living there had brought in mugs more personal to them -- mugs that expressed their personality -- Nat was the only one to use the plain white cups. 

Bucky took note of this. It made sense. Since Black Widows were always trained to be nonentities, their individuality was stripped from them. It made adapting multiple personas easier during missions so they could blend in and manipulate people better. Being social chameleons was a second nature to them.

She continued to stare at him over the top of the mug. An expressionless and indecipherable look held her features uncannily still. Her eyes went to Bucky’s  hair that was still noticeably damp. 

“Freshly showered even though it’s early afternoon, you’re not walking around with your own personal raincloud today .” One corner of her mouth lifted into an asymmetrical smirk. “There’s an uncharacteristic pep in your step.” She looked him dead in the eye. “Even your pupils are still dilated.”

Bucky felt his face getting hot. “Uh…”

“Wow. I was kidding. You’d think an ex-spy would have more composure,” she teased. Though her tone was playful, her sharp eyes stayed locked on him over the brim of her mug as she sipped her drink.

Bucky could tell what it was from the aroma. “It’s still less suspicious than drinking straight black coffee midday.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Gen Zs can drink a Venti-salted-caramel-macchiato iced coffee with almond milk, three pumps of syrup, and whipped cream 3 times a day but I can’t have black coffee  _ once _ in the afternoon?”

Bucky cocked an eyebrow in suspicion. The only other thing he saw Natasha drink was hard alcohol. And the peppy drink she just described (with disturbing detail) was far from that. He smirk ed. Was Natasha secretly a softy underneath that steely demeanor?

She must’ve seen the suspicion lurking deep in his eyes. “Don’t you dare even think it,” she remarked, as if reading his mind. “The ‘Queen’ drinks that, not me.”

The Queen?

“Tony?”

“Yep,” she said. She rose from the couch, leading him to the nearby kitchen where she could discard her cup. “The second he found out Pepper was pregnant with Morgan, Tony began taking it easy on the alcohol. Now it’s caffeine that he consumes like a drugs,” she said, turning to rinse her mug off.

Bucky chuckled but still paused to think. Pepper became  pregnant just before the snap  when the Avengers were still split up. Steve said none of the Avengers went to visit Tony during the five years after the snap or the two years after The Accords were enforced. How would Natasha know Tony changed his drinking habits as soon as he found out Pepper was pregnant? The easiest explanation is that Tony or Pepper told Nat this after things were patched up between the Avengers post Blip. But the way Natasha hid her eyes when she admitted knowing this, gave Bucky’s spy trained mind reason for suspicion. Come to think of it, being estranged for seven years, how did the Avengers even know where Tony and Pepper were living out in the woods?

He watched Nat, who still had her back to him even though she’d already put her cup in the dishwasher and closed it. A brief yet awkward silence passed before she turned around and leaned against the counter. Everything about her body language was casual except for the guarded expression of her eyes. The only crack in her otherwise solid poker face.

Nat was the only original Avenger who never stopped ‘Avenging’ during their five-year hiatus. Had she been keeping tabs on Tony? Is that how they found him? Something like that wouldn’t be hard for a Soviet-trained spy.

“I can’t believe Tony admitted that,” said Bucky, smiling as he did. “He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who wears his heart on his sleeve.”

Natasha just nodded.

“But then again you’ve known him longer than I have ,” said Bucky.

Her smile grew with the following silence .

“It’s nice to see him happy now. It’s nice to see  _ you _ so happy,” she said, switching the subject to Bucky. “It’s nice to see  _ Steve _ so happy. I can’t tell you how many girls I tried to set him up with in the 2010s. He was always so mopey. Like you, he had his own rain cloud at times. It would’ve been nice to know I had a wider demographic to work with.”

Bucky’s suspicion was pushed aside by jealousy. “Out of curiosity, how many dates did he end up going on?”

She shrugged . “I don’t know? I’m  a spy, but I’m not nosy.” Her smile suggested otherwise. “Not many, I assume. He seemed really hung up on somebody. I always assumed it was Peggy.”

Bucky nodded. “I did too, at a certain point back in WW2. But then, in the Paris of ’44 we…” the memory still made his heart flutter. He felt his face get hot again. “He propositioned us getting a house.”

“You still want that?”

“It would be nice. He suggested a house out in a secluded area, with no neighbors, so nobody would ask questions about two men living together. But now in 2024, a house in a nice neighborhood sounds,” he smiled dreamily, “amazing.” 

Nat watched him for a moment, observing him. There was nothing threatening about her expression, but Bucky still felt like he was under a microscope whenever she looked at him. Like he was one of her victims being interrogated. She was a Black Widow after all, and old habits die hard. They were masters of deception. She had a knack for making her victims think they were in control. In turn, they were more likely to spill information.

“How does Steve feel about you becoming an Avenger?” she asked. Her unblinking eyes continued to study him. He knew just how trained her eyes were. He has jumbled distant memories of him helping to train Black Widows in combat back in the 60s. He read records on the Black Widow program to fill in the blanks. Along with turning their bodies into weapons, they were trained in psychology and were taught to notice the most minuscule ticks in body language to spot a liar during an interrogation; an agent in a public crowd of hundreds, even thousands; a traitor amongst friends. He was trained in similar ways when he wasn’t constantly being forced to sp ar.  They both knew they couldn’t lie to each other.

“He’s supportive and understandably worried. Because…”

“He still hasn’t forgiven himself for the past near 80 years?” she guessed.

Bucky nodded. “He never will. And he’s worried that something like Hydra is going to happen to me all over again.”

“We all have things we’ll never forgive ourselves for.” For a moment, Natasha’s expression became as dark as her discarded coffee and she looked like she had gone somewhere else. “No matter what we do to make up for our mistakes, we’ll never be able to undo the damage they’ve done… Not even with time travel.” She lowered her eyes as a barely noticeable chortle escaped her. The corners of her lips twitched as if trying to pull into a smile. 

Like Bucky, she walked around tethered to her traumatic past. Bucky knew too well that it was like being possessed by a haunting ghost. Hers flickered at the back of her eyes like a candle at the end of a dark hallway as she brought her eyes back to his. 

“But you have each other. All you can do is help bear the other’s burdens and work for a better future.” She looked back up at him. “It’s good that he supports you.”

Bucky  nodded. “Above all else, he’s  happy that I’m free to make my own decisions.”

Natasha looked thoughtful before another asymmetrical smirk twisted her lips. “Like the decision to have me beat your ass during our sparring sessions?” 

The gloom that was encompassing them lifted after that.

Bucky chuckled. “I figured it’s only fair. Just one more thing I can do to make up for all the trouble I’ve caused you.”

They headed to one of the many gyms of the Suites and began warming up. Natasha slid easily into the splits and Bucky began swinging his arms and shoulders in slow stiff circles. ‘Warm-ups’ were still weird to him. With Hydra, they just dragged him out of cryo, wiped him, and threw him out onto the field with a mission. Any form of self-care, even as simple as stretching before any of his many sparring sessions with Hydra, was still not normal for him.

Nat, on the other hand, was still in the splits and was bending back so far that the tip of her Dutch braid was brushing the top of her back leg. 

Bucky knew she was watching him awkwardly flail around out of the corner of her eye. She had to be aware of the reason behind his actions. He spoke first to shift her attention from it.

“Have you always been this freakishly flexible?” he teases.

Nat chuckled. “All those years of ballet had to help me somehow.” Her upside-down face twisted into an impish grin. “Even if only to freak out my opponent.”

Bucky humored her. “Psychological warfare, huh? Good tactic.”

“Psychological warfare can win a fight before it even starts,” said Natasha.

Bucky couldn’t tell if she was joking or being serious. Either way, she was right. When he was still the Fist of Hydra, his reputation had a knack of discouraging a lot of his victims. As more memories continued to resurface since he was freed from Hydra, his most vivid ones were of a lot of his targets not even fighting back before he killed them. They just stood there frozen in fear or bitter acceptance.

Bucky saw Nat’s eyes following his stiff arm circles. “Need some oil, Tin Man?” she teased.

Bucky scoffed but didn’t respond.

“That’s from The-”

“The Wizard of Oz.”

Nat grinned. “Wasn’t sure if the reference was old enough for you to recognize.”

“I’m surprised you even know that movie, Millennial,” Bucky jested. “And before you call me a ‘Boomer’, I’m-”

“Why do they call your generation The  _ Greatest _ Generation anyways? Unearned bragging rights?” She teased.

Bucky cocked an eyebrow and smirked. “Excuse me, ‘unearned’? We  _ are _ the greatest.”

“At sparring?”

“Ouch.”

“You’ll be saying that after our session today as well.”

Bucky huffed amusedly. “Christ, when is your coffee going to kick in?”

Nat shrugged. “Hopefully soon. At least, for your sake. I’m usually fiercer in a fight without coffee. All that unprocessed anger.” Again, Bucky couldn’t tell if she was joking.

“Here’s hoping,” he chuckled.

A few minutes later, Natasha did her last stretch. A simple standing, forward bend, where she folded herself in half like one of her many knives. Her collection was the only one Bucky had seen that rivals his own. Having run out of ways to swing his arms 5 minutes ago, Bucky attempted a simple standing, lateral stretch. As he did, Natasha balanced all her weight on her hands and pushed up into a handstand from her current stretching position. Bucky was so impressed by how swiftly she did this, that he didn’t register why she did it so quickly before it was too late.

The air escaped his lungs in a shallow ‘oof’ as she flipped towards him and landed a kick to his exposed diaphragm. It wasn’t the hardest kick she’d landed but it was still enough to knock him off balance and stumble back a few steps.

There was that smart-ass smirk he’d grown used to seeing over the past ten months.

“Rogers is spoiling you, isn’t he?” she teased.

“Well, he doesn’t beat me up,” he chuckled.

“Anybody can become an enemy, even somebody you trust,” she lectured. That ghost he’d seen in her eyes earlier flickered again.

Bucky took a moment to digest her words. Growing up the only boy in his family of The Greatest Generation hadn’t necessarily spoiled him but he had at times taken for granted people treating him so well. Friends and family quickly became a distant memory for him after he became Hydra’s puppet. And now that he had that kind of security back, the thought of losing that again by any means terrified him. Family, which he had found in the love of his life and was finding in the Avengers, was paramount to preserving what sanity he had left.

Another swift kick to his gut pushed more air out of him, shattering his thoughts and bringing him back to the present.

“Got it?” drilled Natasha.

He huffed. “Yeah. Got it.”

“Stay focused. No more zoning out.”

They sparred for five out of their usual ten rounds. She kicked his ass like she usually did. He was vastly stronger than her. But because she was smaller, she was faster, lighter on her feet. She had a knack for outsmarting her opponent too. The Black Widow Program never slacked with its students.

“Should I put on my pointe shoes to even the odds?”

She flipped over him and grappled his back like a monkey, putting him in a rear choke. He threw himself backwards towards the floor, hoping to crush her but she must’ve seen that coming from a mile away. Because she kicked off his back and Bucky ended up just knocking the wind out of only himself.

“You’re still relying too much on your brute strength alone. It makes you predictable. And easy for your enemy to use your force against you,” lectured Natasha. “A lot of bigger guys are like that. Be better than that. Use your brain and read your opponent. You’re not guaranteed victory just because you’re bigger.”

“All the bruises you’ve given me have said the same,” he chuckled.

Natasha spoke in her mother tongue this time. “ _ And yet you don’t seem to be learning from them. _ ” Her voice was harsh, void of any of the playfulness from before.

It caught Bucky off guard.

“Take this seriously,” she growled, going back to English.

Bucky did a swift kip-up. “I am.”

“You sure?”

“I am. I’m just-”

Nat swung a tornado kick for his face. He leaned back, only far enough for her foot to whiff past his nose.

He crouched, trying to trip her with a back-sweep kick. “I’m just learning how to deal with my pain in healthier ways.”

Nat easily hopped over his leg. “Humor is an acceptable prism for pain.” She avoided a punch and grappled him from the front, this time grabbing the arm he just swung, wrapping her legs around his neck and twisting roughly. “But not when you’re seconds away from death.”

Thanks to his serum, Bucky was able to remain standing but he still felt his neck threatening to snap. “Tell that to Stark,” he managed to choke out. He had never seen a grapple like this before. It was like a triangle choke except she had managed to curl forward and grab her leg that was around the back of his neck, and apply even more pressure by pulling it tighter. He soon began to blackout. The serum he had was pretty good, but he was still only human. His knees buckled and he fell onto his hands and knees with Nat still squeezing his neck. It felt like a vice grip. Any effort of pulling her off him would most likely result in his neck breaking. And hurling himself to the ground had worked out poorly last time. He was out of ideas.

He slapped the mats they were on, tapping out.

Natasha released him and rolled backward onto her feet. “Water?” she asked as Bucky hacked his lungs out.

Bucky shook his head and rubbed his neck.

“You’re not a prisoner of war anymore. You’re allowed self-care.”

Bucky frowned. A memory of Hydra punishing him for ‘weakness’ resurfaced. He had had at least 12 broken bones from a sparring session and tried to say he couldn’t fight anymore. He needed a break, to give his serum time to heal him. In response, one of the 3 soldiers wielding batons just hit him full force across the jaw, fully dislocating it.

_ “The mission matters, not you. The only rest you get is in cryo or death.” _

The memory made his chest tighten.

Bucky plopped heavily onto his butt. “Fine.”

When Nat returned with two water bottles, she sat down next to him, handing him one. Bucky took the water but didn’t look at her. She studied him for a moment. There’s no way she missed the furrow of his brow or the distant look in his eyes.

“I know I’m tough on you, but it’s for your own safety once you get out there. We want our soldiers to come back alive. Because like the civilians you save, you’re humans, not assets.”

Bucky nodded stiffly.

“Plus, Steve would kill me himself if I sent you out there unprepared.”

A chortle blew out of Bucky.

“Is it true he single-handedly infiltrated a Hydra base all to save you?”

The tension in Bucky’s chest immediately loosened. Memories of seeing Steve’s face smiling down at him for the first time in months chased away the memories of what Hydra had been doing to him. He had a feeling Nat already knew the answer to her question, but he answered anyway. “Yeah,” he murmured.

“Most people never experience a love like that,”  said Nat, her tone seemed reminiscent. “ Where the person matters more to you than life itself. That’s what you should be fighting for.” She nudged him playfully. “For that self-sacrificing idiot.”

Bucky nodded, more calmly this time.

Natasha patted his shoulder. “Round six in five minutes.”

Their next round started with her making the first move again. He blocked her kick this time, catching her foot in his metal hand. This didn’t stop her. With lightning fast reflexes, she leapt off of her standing leg, flash kicking him. It startled him, causing him to loosen his grip just enough for her to pull out of it.

“Stay ahead of your opponent, Barnes.”

“I know.”

Back when he was Hydra’s brainwashed dog, a simple kick to the chin wouldn’t have even phased him. His brainwashing gave him laser sharp tunnel vision on his missions. So his brain barely even processed physical pain during a mission. Must’ve been an effect of being wiped by the * Wiedergänger.

For the next three minutes, he tried to land a hit on her, but she was too fast.

“Were you lying when you said you haven’t received any kind of serum?” he said. He was only partially joking.

She hopped backwards out of his reach and stared at him blankly for a solid 5 seconds before answering. “No,” she said with a shrug. “I just learn from my defeats.”

Bucky didn’t remember much of when he faced her in the 2010’s. Most of his memories as the Winter Soldier were more scrambled than his lucid memories.

“And then I make myself stronger from them. Smarter. So I can keep kicking their ass.” She didn’t smile but cocked a cheeky eyebrow.

Several bruises and two headlocks later, Bucky needed a new plan. He decided on psychological warfare.

“You mentioned friends becoming enemies. Are you speaking from personal experience?” He swung at her with his metal arm.

She easily flipped away. “Lessons that tough are  _ always _ learned from personal experience.” She locked eyes with him. “I know what you’re trying to do. And since it’s another thing you’ll never beat me at,” there was that smirk again, “I’ll indulge you.”

She ran towards him and leapt like she was going to grapple him again. But why from the front? It was probably another trap. He wasn’t falling for that again. He jumped back to avoid her. She landed where he just was and leapt again, driving her knee into his diaphragm.

“Her name was Yulia,” said Nat. “We were… in the Red Room together.” She seemed distracted.

An opening, Bucky thought.

“I assume you two were close?” He swung his metal arm at her. She dodged, flipping away from him.

“Of course. She was my only ally in the program. One of the few friends I ever had in my entire life.” Her tone was filled with regret and her fighting had become purely defensive now, instead of the confident offense from before.

Bucky lunged at her, trying to grab her. “What’d she do to you?”

Natasha swerved easily and countered with a back kick, getting him square in the jaw. “Nothing.” She swung a haymaker at him and he blocked it. “ _ I _ betrayed her,” she stated, looking him dead in the eye. 

Bucky was surprised. The air left his lungs as she swung a kick into his liver. He and Natasha’s eyes met again for a split second. Her deadpan look he’d seen merely two seconds ago was gone and hers looked crazed. The faint ghost of her past he’d seen flickering in the back of them from before had morphed into a vengeful spirit; fully ablaze and at the forefront now. Bucky felt like he’d just summoned a demon. Whatever question he had next, left him.

“ _ You look worried, _ ” huffed Natasha. She spoke in Russian again as she leapt towards him.

“ _ Only for you, _ ” he huffed back, managing to grab her neck.

The demon flared wildly in her Nat’s eyes and she drove the bottom of her foot, full force into his face.

The taste and smell of copper bombarded Bucky.

“ _ You’re lucky the serum heals you fast, _ ” said Natasha, as blood began dripping from Bucky’s nose. It stopped in less than a minute and the match was over in half the time. Natasha won. Again.

Bucky sat on the mats, licking blood off his teeth and lips. He looked up at Natasha who was standing confidently with her hands on her hips a few feet away. She never went easy on him during training. She never coddled him in any scenario, for that matter. She wasn’t necessarily cruel, she just didn’t treat him any differently than she treated anybody else she trained. Which he appreciated.

Ever since he was freed from Hydra, it was nice to eventually have kindness become a regular thing in his life again. Even the world that only saw him as the infamous Fist of Hydra was now starting to show him compassion after learning he was brainwashed. But once in a while, he’d encounter a person who treated him like a wounded puppy and he just couldn’t stand that.

Kindness made you feel human. While being coddled, pitied, made you feel like a victim all over again.

He made sure to pay her the same respect.

She smiled softly down at him as he sat on the mats, wiping the blood from his face. The demon was calm again, for now.

“Psychological warfare.” She said. “Not bad. But it doesn’t work on everybody.”

“Clearly. It had the opposite effect on you.”

“That’s because I know how to channel my anger.”

“What about your guilt?” asked Bucky.

“What?”

“It still eats away at you. I can tell.”

“And your trauma doesn’t?” she huffed.

“Of course it does… It always will. I guess I was just wondering if you had any magic tricks to better deal with it.”

“I don’t deal with it. I just... live with it”

There was a short silence between them before Bucky spoke. “Does talking about it help?”

“Not sure. I never have… The most I’ve ever verbally elaborated was ‘I got red in my ledger.’”

More silence.

“You don’t have to do it now. Or ever, really. I still have trouble opening up about my past, even with Steve. But it can help.”

Natasha lowered her gaze as if she were thinking about it. When she met his eyes again, they looked worried but determined.

It was the kind of look Bucky was intimately familiar with. The whisper of determination of finally being ready to open up about your trauma managing to break through the worry of being ostracized for your past.

“Yulia,” she repeated. “We were planning on escaping and finished making our plan a month before her 11 th birthday. But the day before our plan took place, the instructor made me and her fight… I think she knew.”

Nat and Bucky were close enough for Bucky’s enhanced hearing to pick up her elevating heart rate. She paused, taking a slow breath in. Her heart slowed back down. “It was a common thing for trainees to be set up in matches. We’d fight and then the winner would kill the ‘weak’ opponent.” Her voice had become low with anger.

To have gone through that at such a young age must’ve been terrible. He already predicted how her and Yulia’s fight ended. Bucky wanted to say something to comfort her. But what could he say? ‘It’s okay, Nat. You shouldn’t blame yourself for killing your friend.’ He knew that nothing could assuage the guilt of something that serious. All he could do was not pass judgment.

“I’m assuming you beat her?” he asked, in a neutral tone.

Natasha shook her head. “She beat me. And when the instructor told her to kill me, she refused. She said she’d rather die than betray her friend.” Nat’s voice began to shake. “Things like friendship and love were seen as weakness and punishable by death for trainees. So, the instructor hit Yulia to the ground… and broke Yulia’s neck under her heel. Then, turned to me and told me I had a chance at redemption.” The deep breath she took shook. “And I crawled over to Yulia, wrapped my arm around her neck in a choke hold and squeezed until she stopped squirming. The day we were supposed to escape would’ve been her birthday.” An uncharacteristic sob escaped Natasha. “I still remember how she wheezed; how she scratched at me; the pain in her eyes fading as her heart stopped. Nothing hurts worse than somebody you trusted with your life, being the person that ends it.”

Bucky flashed back to Steve’s bloodied face from that helicarrier. When Bucky almost did the same to Steve.

“Even with 70 years of brainwashing, you were still able to stop yourself from killing Steve,” she said as if reading his mind again. “But I…” her voice trailed off and she shook her head. Her posture stayed poised, like a graceful ballerina but Bucky knew her guilt was causing her to shrivel up on the inside.

Again, he knew that comforting her wouldn’t do much, but it was better than silence.

Silence was torture for a tormented mind.

He flashed back to the days he spent alone between 2014 and 2016. So many sleepless nights spent wrestling with his fuzzy, tumultuous thoughts. The reality of what had happened to him, what he’d been forced to do, weighing down on him. One day he finally shattered under it and had a meltdown. The result of which trashed his first ‘house,’ an abandoned shack with a leaky ceiling down by a remote lake he’d been squatting in. He remembered screaming until he was coughing up blood and the shack was nothing more than a pile of splintered wood. Then he just sat in the storm that had been raging along with him until it passed. It was the first of many long overdue meltdowns. And if he was being honest with himself, they did help him feel marginally better. Being held captive and controlled for so long, he was never allowed to express himself.

Natasha had most certainly been treated in similar ways. Bucky observed her for a moment. He wasn’t going to intentionally provoke her but even if trying to comfort her happened upon that result, she might find a possible outburst cathartic. You can only run from or bury your trauma for so long. Because when it came to struggles, the only way out was through.

“If you hadn’t have done what you did, they would’ve killed you both,” he reasoned.

“That’s what should’ve happened,” she murmured.

“You were a child. And you just wanted to live-”

“So was Yulia.” Her voice was even but her eyes were livid, full of understated rage. It was a disturbing combination. The demon was resurfacing. “I had a choice in my actions, Bucky,” she argued. “I wasn’t brainwashed.”

“You still didn’t decide to join the Black Widow program. You were forced into it, as a child. You were young and impressionable when they started conditioning you. You didn’t know any better. So, in a way, you were being brainwashed.”

“I was still old enough to understand that murder was bad.”

“But-”

“Neither of us decided to have our captors do what they did to us.” She snapped. “Nor can we change that it happened. But we now have the autonomy to use what they ‘taught’ us for good. That’s as good as it gets. If your guilt won’t leave you, channel it. Use it to motivate your fight for good.” Nat exhaled sharply before her typical poker-faced ‘composure’ returned.

Looking at her ‘relaxed’ expression right now reminded Bucky of the ocean. No matter how calm it looked on the surface, he knew that there were many dangerous underwater currents and sharks lurking beneath its surface. She probably had as many as him.

“I hope that answered your question,” she said.

Bucky gave a stiff nod that was followed by a heavy silence.

“Round seven?” asked Natasha. It didn’t really sound like a question.

“Yes, Ma’am,” said Bucky, his old fashioned manners momentarily resurfacing.

Natasha scoffed and her hands went to her hips. “Ma’am? You’re the elder here. Not me.” A small smile lit up her face. She was returning to her smart ass self.

Bucky sprung up from the mat. “That’s right, young lady,” he jested. “If you keep treating me like this, I’ll have to report you for elder abuse.”

“Aw, ya beat me to my next joke.”

“Stay ahead of your opponent, right?”

“You’re learning.” She cocked an eyebrow. “Finally.” 

She leapt towards him and he blocked her kick.

“Let’s see if you can actually beat me for once.”


End file.
